Andre Marriner... red card blunder.

The case of mistaken identity which produced an embarrassing gaffe in the Premier League last weekend should not necessitate a rush to embrace technology to counter controversial refereeing calls, English league football’s top executive said.

But a discussion on introducing refereeing aids to help resolve matters of a “factual nature” should be held, Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore told Reuters in an interview at the start of a promotional visit to South Africa.

Referee Andre Marriner sent off the wrong Arsenal player at Chelsea on Saturday, causing uproar when he awarded a penalty for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s handball and sent off Kieran Gibbs by mistake despite the real culprit owning up.

TV replays showed Oxlade-Chamberlain clearly mouthing “it was me” but Marriner, who took a long time before awarding the penalty, stuck to his original decision.

“I’m not so sure just because of one incident we should be racing to advocate the use of all different forms of technology,” Scudamore said.

We might well be behind in our desire to embrace technology in comparison to other sports but football is not behind in terms of global appeal

“I think there is a discussion to be had about where you can use it for purely factual matters.

“If there are other purely factual situations there might be some room for scope creep in terms of the use of technology but you don’t really want to change the essence of the game,” he added.

“We might well be behind in our desire to embrace technology in comparison to other sports but football is not behind in terms of global appeal. We don’t yet have an absolute formed view at the Premier League of what is the right and the next application.”

Scudamore called Marriner’s mistake “a once-in-every-23-years type of circumstance”.

“I’ve never seen a defender throw himself across (the goal) and make such a good save as that. There were a whole load of things here that, in the first instance, happens so rarely and that, in the second instance, you’d have thought that one of the four officials might have come up with a different outcome had things been given more consideration.”

Scudamore is leading a Premier League charm offensive in a market where its product is widely followed and admired but where critics suggest its saturation television coverage takes spectators away from the domestic league.

In many African and Asian countries, tele-vision audiences for English matches far outstrip the following of the local game, causing a sensitive situation which Scudamore acknowledged.

“We have no desire to be of more interest than local league, that’s not what we are after. We’d be more than happy to see local leagues be the league of choice with us being an interested second and that applies anywhere in the world.”

But revenue from international sales is now moving closer to that the Premier League earns from British broadcasters.

The Premier League sold its broadcasting rights to Sky and BT in a record-breaking deal last year worth around three billion pounds, while overseas TV deals bring in some two billion pounds.