Collina: 'Tech won't solve everything'

By Football Italia staff

Pierluigi Collina warns video technology “won’t magically fix everything” in football, but welcomes other changes.

Yesterday FIFA’s new President Gianni Infantino announced that two years of experimentation would begin into introducing video technology to aid referees in games.

“If I were a referee today, I’d be frustrated at being judged based on images that I don’t have access too and had nothing to do with my skills,” Collina told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“Infantino said we need to be open to the development of football and I agree. Now we’ll see, we’ll study and then decide if and how it can be applied to a match situation.

“The objective is to respect the fluidity of the game. Rugby has realised technology can be invasive and will perhaps take a step back.”

When it comes to having an extra referee watching the video replays, Collina admits that’s a concern too.

“We talked a great deal about this. The ideal is for the referee to decide, also to legitimise his role. An assistant is always useful, even to spot simulation that escaped the human eye.

“The experimentation process is lengthy precisely to understand what could happen. There is another risk, which is that the definitive response doesn’t come from a video either. It’s best we don’t kid ourselves that this will magically fix everything.

“Many decisions are down to subjective interpretation. It’s not like Goal Line Technology where it’s an objective response: over the line or not.

“For example, the intensity of a push or what counts as a punishable handling offence can be interpreted differently whether in real time or on video.

“It’s a step forward, certainly, because criticising referees today is like insulting a doctor in the 1800s who made an inaccurate diagnosis. He wasn’t less talented than today’s medics, he just didn’t have access to X-Rays.”

Collina noted there were several other rule changes introduced by the FIFA Board yesterday that slipped under the radar.

“Above all I am pleased at the abolition of the ‘triple punishment’ – red card and penalty for stopping a goal-scoring opportunity – because football has been asking for this for years. Infantino did well to convince the Board.

“There is also a principle of fair play that I’d been fighting for over several years, that a player who is injured by a bookable offence can stay on the pitch to receive treatment if it is brief.

“We do need to still revamp the offside rules, as today the job of the assistants is at the limits of what the human eye can achieve.

“Comparing the foot with the head, at different levels with a few centimetres of difference, is almost impossible.

“Handball also has to be adjusted, because football is a sport of movement and establishing what is or isn’t natural isn’t easy.”

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