Ukraine's Goal.

In football/soccer for a goal to be scored the whole of the ball has to cross the whole of the goal-line while the ball is in active play. I know this sounds simple but top players can strike the ball at speeds close to 100 kmph. This speed coupled with ricochets off the goal-posts means that there are often occasions where it is simply not possible for the human eye to tell if a goal has been scored or not. As a result the history of the sport is littered with goals that were not given and non-goals that were given. The 1966 World Cup final between England and Germany is probably one of the most talked about of these incidents especially in England and Germany.

As more and more of the top football matches are televised along with improvements with camera and computer mapping technology there has been growing calls for goal-line technology such video replays or the Hawkeye system to used to definitely say whether a goal has been scored. This idea is very popular with fans and players but the sports governing bodies especially UEFA's Micheal Platani are still opposed to the idea. For Euro2012 UEFA has compromised by putting human line judges on the goal-line.

This compromise system was put to the test during yesterday's Ukraine V England game when Ukraine's Marco Devic appeared to score an equaliser and England's John Terry appeared to clear the ball off the line. On this occasion the humans ruled that it wasn't a goal but the TV replays clearly shows it was. However it would have made no difference to the outcome of the group because France were 1-0 down to Sweden. Therefore England would have still won the group with 5 points while France and Ukraine would have tied for second place on 4 points. That tie would have been decided by the result of the game between the two teams which France won 2-0.

However this head to head results rule is in itself new with the more traditional way of breaking a points tie being goal difference (total goals scored minus total goals conceded). With France losing by only 1 goal using this measure still wouldn't have made any difference until Sweden's Sebastian Larsson scored in the 90th and final minute of the match. If we'd been using the goal-difference system this goal would have meant that Ukraine would have gone through instead of France. So I think there was an element of gamesmanship by both Sweden and France trying to put pressure on the sports governing body over goal-line technology.

Personally I'm still not convinced though for two main reasons;

• The goal-line is same width as the goal-posts and cross-bar that surround it. Therefore there have been a number of incidents where the goal-posts have obscured the camera's view meaning that even video replays have been unable to tell if the whole of the ball has crossed the whole of the line.

• Football is not rugby nor is cricket or tennis. The way that a lot of the teams play a counter-attacking game means that they very often draw their opponents forward in the hope of scoring then get possession from a rebound/ricochet before charging up to the other end of the pitch to score themselves. Allowing a break in play for the referee to check a video replay will completely spoil the flow of the game. Also you only need to look at how players like Christiano Ronaldo fall over for no apparent reason to see how this will be abused.