Valcke cancels role in goal-line technology debate to handle corruption crisis

By Andrew Warshaw

October 19 – FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has cancelled a visit to tomorrow’s goal-line technology meeting in order to deal with the World Cup corruption crisis at home in Zurich.

Valcke was due to attend the International FA Board’s (IFAB) interim business meeting in Wales but will be represented instead by junior officials for the meeting with the chief executives of the four British associations.

A news conference at the end of the talks has also been cancelled.

Ironically an emergency press conference has been called by FIFA in Zurich the same day following far more urgent matters – the FIFA Ethics Committee’s hearing into the cases of Executive Committee members Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii, the officials at the centre of the cash-for-votes scandal.

Meanwhile, it is anticipated that the IFAB meeting will bring goal-line technology a step closer, with discussions on a raft of proposals to finally bring the game into the 21st century.

The move comes following a dramatic U-turn by FIFA president Sepp Blatter in the wake of Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal against Germany at the World Cup.

After years of controversy, the IFAB seems likely to give the green light in principle to bringing in a system for checking whether the ball has crossed the line.

FIFA has previously rebuffed all demands to use technology to resolve contentious refereeing decisions, despite it being successfully implemented in other sports such as tennis, cricket and rugby union.

The rationale has been that it would stop the free-flowing movement of the game but that has been outweighed by global pressure for the rules to be changed.

Although no firm ruling can be made until IFAB’s full session next spring, an independent company is likely to be approved to test the accuracy of technology following recent presentations of 13 different systems – all of them either camera-based such as Hawkeye or sensor-based such as a micro-chip inside the ball.

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