The use of technology in football is necessary to preserve their honesty, as former international referees and officials of the sport who participated in a conference in Lisbon.
The second edition of "The future of football," organized by Sporting Lisbon, one of biggest clubs in Portugal, gathered at its first session to arbitration specialists UK and Holland favorable to the implementation of technology to reduce errors of the referees.
Although the technology that determines whether the ball has not exceeded or the goal line is being implemented progressively, there are still voices against technology in arbitration because they believe it would make the game slower (being constantly querying the recordings to make decisions) and it would be an extra cost.
"We need to use technology to refereeing decisions that have a valuable aid," said Jose Alvalade Stadium in the former international referee Keith Hackett British.
Hackett, who started refereeing in the 60s, lamented how they were slow technological developments until age 90, and asked to expand on the changes to help improve the quality of refereeing.
The Dutchman Gijs de Jong leads one of the pioneering projects on the application of technology in football.
"It should be used in the most important decisions," said the specialist, among which cited penalties.
De Jong so expensive countered that the implementation of these new facilities and explained that the cameras are already popularized to be considered prohibitive.
"Preserves the honesty of the game," said the member of the Royal Dutch Football Federation.
Two other participants discussed the relationship of rugby, which applies technology to refereeing decisions, and football.
"We can draw valuable lessons from rugby," said the Briton Darren Bailey, director of regulation of the English federation.
"It is clear that the referee has to have control of the situation at all times. You can not stay waiting to see what the camera says. We're talking about technology used on special occasions, when it is a blatant error", he said.
The Irishman David McHugh, head of refereeing at the IRFU, highlighted the impact of technology in the sport.
They opened the conference today the president of Sporting, Bruno de Carvalho, and Secretary of State of the Portuguese Sport, Joao Paulo Rebelo.
Both applauded that meetings of this kind are held, they contribute to enlarge a debate that may serve to improve the health of football.