Premier league votes to introduce goal-line technology

Fans, players and others associated with the game have long-argued in favour of the technology being used to settle goal-line disputes although its adoption has been opposed by some who claim that extra goal-mouth officials could do the job just as effectively.

The contract to provide the system has been awarded to British-firm Hawk-Eye Innovations, which is commercialising technology originally developed by engineers at another UK firm, Roke Manor Research (now known simply as Roke).

Already widely used in cricket, tennis and snooker the technology uses high frame rate cameras to triangulate and track the ball in flight. Software then calculates the ball’s location in each frame, and records its flight path. 

The football proposal involves placing seven cameras for each goal mouth around the stadium. The system is reportedly able to detect in near real-time whether the ball has crossed the line, and will, it’s claimed, notify referees via an encrypted watch in less than a second.