Can Technology and Soccer Mix?

Sunday's World Cup match between France and South Korea raised a reoccurring question about officiating in the world's largest sporting event. In the 30th minute of the match, Patrick Vieira's header appeared to travel over the goal line before being swatted away by Lee Woon-Jae, the South Korean goalkeeper.

The lack of an instant replay system in soccer stands in stark contrast to professional sports in the United States, where instant replay has been used for years. Many soccer fans and officials oppose video replay systems because they believe review will interrupt the smooth flow of the game. The president of the Federation Internationale de Football Association ("FIFA"), the world governing body of soccer, has stated that "the game must keep its human face, which includes mistakes."

Although opposed to instant replay in the American form, FIFA has been experimenting with different technologies for over a decade but has been unable to find anything that is 100% reliable. The current front-runner is a "smartball" system being developed by Adidas, Cairos Technologies, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits. The system has a ball containing a RFID chip and a network of receivers placed around the field to track the ball's movement.

The system was tested last year in the World Under-17 Championship in Peru, where the system failed to meet FIFA's 100% reliability requirement. According to a former head of officiating for FIFA, testing revealed several problems with the system: balls shot over the goal that landed on the net were counted as goals, data took several seconds to transfer to the referee, and more than one ball on the field crashed the system. These problems caused FIFA to decide that the system was not ready for the World Cup; however, the system will continue to be tested in matches after the World Cup ends.