I like conspiracy theory’s as much as the next person, but why don’t FIFA really want to use technology in officiating soccer games? Technophobia, I think not! For as long as we have played world cups, there has been controversy and the best FIFA could come up with was FIFA Fair Play. So before every game we have soccer players walk out onto the pitch and pledge themselves to fair play and then start the game and demonstrate what fair play is NOT.
FIFA’s response to this is usually an apology and a pledge not to introduce technology. I am beginning to wonder why? Why would an organisation that is responsible for the promotion and management of a world wide sport in which supporters and fans are religious in their following, be opposed to fair play in their actions.
No technology allows players to cheat, plain and simple. Referees and linesman cannot be everywhere and are just human thus introducing human error as well. This creates a huge opportunity for manipulation and influence of soccer games. Now ordinarily I would imagine the any sport governing body would try to stamp out any opportunity to manipulate and influence a game, but not FIFA.
FIFA it seems, like as much opportunity to influence games as the bookies. Maybe just maybe the reason FIFA is so opposed to technology in sport is not technophobia but the limitation of its own ability to influence and manipulate games. Maybe they make money from both sides of the financial model, that is selling the sport and collecting royalties from bookies or maybe even being bookies themselves. This could possibly be one explanation for their insistence of no technology.
If you have any other ideas to FIFA’s technophobia, I would be most interested in them….
Yours in sport and conspiracy theories….