Pic Andrew Teebay. Everton FC v Newcastle United. Everton concede the late equaliser to make it 2-2.
I’VE GONE on record many times to talk about the need for goal-line technology in football and eventually it looks like it’ll happen.
So while I share the frustration of every Evertonian after the Blues were denied two perfectly fine goals on Monday, I think it’s time to call for more consistency in general from officials.
I’ve noticed a few examples lately when controversy has been sparked by decisions which need to be looked at again.
Look at Danny Welbeck’s suspected dive to win a penalty for Manchester United against Wigan at the weekend.
It’s very hard for the referee in real-time to call whether Welbeck deliberately dived, so I’ve no great problem with him making an honest decision on the spot.
But I think there should be a special panel of ex professional footballers that can meet after every round of fixtures to review contentious decisions like that.
It could be respected names like the Match of the Day panel; Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson and Alan Shearer, and they’d be able to review it in a fresh light with the benefit of various different camera angles.
If they then decided that the player, in this case Welbeck, had dived, the FA could then automatically ban him for the next game.
It’d certainly stop most players from trying to cheat the system by going down too easily.
Stoke fans nearly had a big gripe too at the very end of their game against Manchester City.
Three minutes of added time were signalled, and although that had expired the ref allowed one last City attack and they very nearly scored. It seemed like he didn’t want to blow up because the ball wasn’t in the middle or out of play. Madness.
We need more consistency.
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