Fifa Closes Door on Technology

You've heard about Fifa's slogan, right?

"World football: Where it's always 1934!"

So, Fifa has decided to give up experiments with video cameras to determine if a ball has actually crossed the goal line. Nothing that really matters.

The rich part of this?

Jerome Valcke, the mouthpiece of president Sepp Blatter, said he really hopes South Africa 2010 doesn't have a controversial goal/non-goal that accurate (but non-official) television replays fail to verify.

"Questons will always come," Herr Valcke concedes. "We just hope they will not come in the final of the World Cup."

Actually, I hope they do. Perhaps that is what it would take to drag Fifa, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century. And, yes, I know we're now in the 21st century.

Look at some of the comments deeper in the linked story, from the retired referee. He suggests it mostly is about arrogance. "We are the world's No. 1 sport. We got here with the rules and the system we have now. So why change anything?"

Fifa officials wouldn't want to have considered that the world wasn't flat, either. Too much bother.

We have never suggested that every professional soccer game in the world needs to have instant replay. But for the World Cup? Yes. It should. Real goals should count. Non goals should not.

This seems really easy. But Fifa is easily befuddled.