Leaving big decisions to a man with a whistle can spoil football. Stuart Rayner hopes that as far as possible, it continues that way.
HE was barely able to speak, but there was no disguising Harry Redknapp's disappointment.
He was not the only one. Hundreds of managers, players and supporters will have been feeling just as bitter at the weekend.
Injustices happen constantly at football matches up and down the country. Most are only seen by one man and his dog. Redknapp’s evidence was captured in high definition for the world and his wife to look at. It did not make pretty viewing.
Twice in the game Redknapp had just witnessed, Manchester City players escaped red cards for assaulting his Tottenham Hotspur players.
Quite apart from the effect reducing the league leaders to nine men might have had on a tight game, the second culprit – Mario Balotelli – scored the winner from the penalty spot in the fourth minute of stoppage time. The controversial Italian had earlier flicked his heel into the head of Scott Parker. Joleon Lescott elbowed Younes Kaboul in the head. Both escaped because they were out of the officials’ vision. Balotelli, however, was last night charged with violent conduct by the Football Association.
Newcastle United were victims on Saturday when Lee Mason and Sian Massey convinced themselves Davide Santon (pictured below) had shoved Damien Duff inside the penalty area. Television proved them wrong. Danny Murphy converted the penalty to draw Fulham level completely against the run of play. Seventeen minutes later they led 4-1, en route to a victory unimaginable at half-time.
Would the Magpies have lost their composure – and the game – so spectacularly had Mason got his decision right? There are so many imponderables we cannot possibly know, but you can bet your life some think so.
The technology debate will probably never leave football, even if it is one day implemented.
As Howard Webb and his team unwittingly proved at Eastlands, sometimes four pairs of eyes are not enough. Anyone who has ever seen Stoke City ... ahem ... contest a corner will wonder if there ever can be enough.
In European competitions, referees are given an extra official on each goal-line to help referees see anything that escapes the attention of them, their two linesmen and fourth official. Generally they provide as much assistance as a chocolate fireguard, yet they will patrol the lines at Euro 2012. Happy days.
Those of us opposed to in-game video technology have already lost the battle.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that Zinedine Zidane was not sent off in the 2006 World Cup final because fourth official Luis Medina Cantalejo had a sneaky peak of a nearby monitor before whispering into the mic-ed up ear of referee Horacio Elizondo. The rules said he cannot, so Fifa claim he did not. We cynics drew different conclusions.
It was a perfect example of technology working. Otherwise, the headbutt by France’s most gifted player on Marco Materazzi would have gone unnoticed and they may have lifted the trophy, instead of losing on penalties. The question is, where does it stop? At Southwark Crown Court, it is vital justice is done in the case involving Redknapp, jointly facing tax evasion charges he denies. When he takes to the White Hart Lane dugout, it is preferable. He is playing a game.
