In the 1966 World Cup Finals, England's Geoff Hurst took a shot that hit the bottom of the crossbar, came down, and landed near the goal line. Though television cameras showed that this was in fact not a goal, it was ruled a goal by the officials. You could argue that it would be hard to tell what really happened, because technology wasn't advanced enough back then to make goal-line cameras.
In the 2010 World Cup Finals, England's John Terry cleared a ball from his own goal (above), and the officials ruled that there was no goal. Yet, television cameras showed that the ball had clearly crossed the goal line. But you can't argue with this one. By this time, the MLB, NBA, and NFL had all adopted technologies that allowed them to settle disputes over the ruling of the play. But soccer still adamantly refused to use technologies to settle their scoring disputes.
But finally, soccer has given in to the technology. On Thursday, the International Football Assosciation Board agreed to use goal-line technologies from the companies HawkEye and GoalRef. These technologies will start being used this December for the FIFA Club World Cup, and will be used for the 2014 World Cup.
How do these technologies work? HawkEye works by setting up 14 cameras around the stadium, while GoalRef uses a small chip inside the soccer ball and the natrual magnetic field of the goalposts. GoalRef is the cheaper of the two, though it still costs a whopping $175,000 per stadium to install. FIFA plans to use both of these technologies, which will alert the referee a second after the ball crosses the goal line.
