FIFA rule out technology talk

Goal-line technology will not be on the agenda when football’s law-makers meet in Wales this week, contrary to indications by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

The technical sub-committee of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) will meet in Cardiff tomorrow, but as planned back in May, there will only be one item on the agenda and that will be the continuing experiment with additional assistant referees.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced during the World Cup finals that goal-line technology had to be discussed once again at the “first opportunity” and indicated that would take place this month.

However, it is not now expected to be on the agenda until a more formal meeting in October.

A FIFA spokesman said: “The meeting this week is purely to ratify any requests that have come forward over the implementation of the assistant referees experiment, which was used last year in the Europa League.

“The first formal meeting where that discussion (goal-line technology) could take place is in October.”

Tomorrow’s meeting will instead concentrate on the member associations who have taken up the opportunity to use additional assistant referees after IFAB agreed in May to launch a two-year experiment to test the effectiveness of the initiative.

IFAB, which comprises represen-tatives from FIFA and the four home nations, rejected the notion of goal-line technology in March on the grounds of cost and the possible disruption it would bring.

However, calls for the introduction of technology intensified after England’s Frank Lampard was denied what would have been an equaliser in the World Cup second round clash with Germany when his shot rebounded off the underside of the crossbar and dropped over the line, but unseen by the match officials and was not given.

Mexico, too, suffered as they were dumped out of the competition by Argentina with the help of a blatantly offside Carlos Tevez goal.