Football, eh. There's a lot of it about. Some 2,036 games in the English football league each season. Another 123 to take the FA Cup from the first round to its conclusion. The League Cup, the Europa League, the Champions League, the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, non-league, parks, schools, gardens. England, Scotland ... er, all the other countries.

If the fact that we can't all have goalline technology is an acceptable reason for none of us to have it, we might as well stop the debate right here. Fortunately (for the remainder of this article, as well as the future of football) it isn't. Still, that hasn't stopped Fifa from pretending that it might. "The application of modern technologies can be very costly," they said back in March, "and therefore not applicable on a global level. Many matches are not even televised. We have close to 900 preliminary matches for the World Cup, and the same rules need to be applied in all matches of the same competition. The rules need to be the same for all association football matches worldwide."

Well hold it right there, we seem to have got our wires crossed. I don't think anybody is talking about there being any different rules governing the game from one event to the next. In my book, the rules suggest that if the ball hits the crossbar and bounces three feet over the goalline somebody has probably scored a goal. I believe this rule is the same everywhere.

What we're talking about isn't the application of different rules but the different application of the same rules, which is another matter entirely. Indeed, Fifa seems to know this already. For example, match officials at the World Cup get to chat to each other through fancy headsets, provided to help them get their decisions right. They work in teams, all of them from the same country, to aid their communication and teamwork.

Did New Zealand's Michael Hester and his assistants, Raimana Tauotaha from Tahiti and Jackson Namo from the Solomon Islands, chat to each other through fancy headsets when they took charge of American Samoa v Vanuatu in the qualifying stages of this very World Cup? I can't be sure, but I can hazard a pretty decent guess.

So what's holding us back? Why is Fifa's collective ability to see the glaringly obvious as useless as a Uruguayan linesman's? Stick a camera in the goal. Put some chips in the ball. Scatter a few more officials around the touchline. However you want to do it, let's get the big calls right at the big events.

But Fifa has another argument. "The human aspect of football is essential to this sport," Jonathan Ford of the Welsh FA said after he participated in Fifa's decision in March. "We were all agreed that technology shouldn't enter football because we want football to remain human, which is what makes it great," added Patrick Nelson of the Irish FA.

Again, puzzling. So now Fifa is prioritising the expression of humanity over all else. But surely nothing in the game is so pure, so human, as a footballer's reaction to scoring a goal – yet Fifa are happy to interfere with that. For example, players are not allowed to remove their shirts, "in the interests of maintaining discipline and order on the field of play". In 2004 Carlos Tevez, then of Boca Juniors, was so joyful after scoring against River Plate that he pulled off his shirt and imitated a chicken. He was sent off.

It's hard to work out why Fifa is so set on an old-fashioned stance which continues to bring the game into disrepute. Clearly at the very highest level – World Cup finals, the Champions League final, a handful of key events – everything must be done to prevent goals from being awarded or denied and matches from being decided in error.

How would we do it, without the game descending into chaos? My proposal: technology to be used to decide instantly when the ball crosses the goalline between the posts and under the bar, and all goals and straight red cards to be reviewed immediately by a TV official who can overturn any glaring errors made by the referee or his assistants. Any decision close enough to require multiple replays should be left unchanged. If a goal is disallowed play restarts with a goal kick. That's it. No additional stoppages, no lack of humanity, no appeals, no problems.

That is, unless you have a better idea.