‘Sorry,’ says Blatter

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has apologised for the errors made by referees during the World Cup and hinted that much-needed video technology may well be on the way.

Calls for the use of video technology in football are nothing new, but the issue was in the spotlight again on Monday morning after glaring errors made during Sunday’s second round matches – between Germany and England and later Argentina and Mexico.

England were robbed of a dramatic equaliser shortly before half-time against Germany – a goal that would have leveled the scores at 2-2, while Argentina’s Carlos Tevez scored against Mexico from an off-side position.

Blatter, on Tuesday, revealed that he had spoken to both the English and Mexican teams.
“Personally I deplore it when you see evident referee mistakes but it’s not the end of a competition or the end of football, this can happen,” said Blatter.

“The only thing I can do is yesterday I have spoken to the two federations (England and Mexico) directly concerned by referees mistakes.

“I have expressed to them apologies and I understand they are not happy and that people are criticising.

On Monday, FIFA seemed to dig their heels in over the issue, claiming that there was a time and place to discuss the use of technology, and that now was not the time. But on Tuesday, Blatter hinted that goal-line technology may be on the way.
“The only principle we are going to bring back for discussion is goal-line technology,” said Blatter.

“Football is a game that never stops and the moment there was a discussion if the ball was in or out, or there was a goal-scoring opportunity, do we give a possibility to a team to call for replays once or twice like in tennis?

“For situations like the Mexico game you don’t need technology.
“Its obvious that that after what we have experienced so far it would be a nonsense not to reopen the technology topic in July (21-22) in Cardiff.”

AFP reports that FIFA are also looking at ways to improve officiating on the whole.
“We want to improve the match control,” he said.
“How to do it ? After World Cup 1990, we created a task force called football 2000.
“We made some amendments like the back pass to goal keeper. It’s not today we have just started. It’s an ongoing process. We’ll come out in October/November with a new model how to improve high level refereeing.
“I cannot disclose more of what we are doing but something has to be changed.”