Technology and Sport
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
Technology is an integral part of our daily lives, and we have become dependent upon it, to some degree or another, and sport is not immune from its outreach.
Many sports are now embracing technology, in one form or another, to replace or supplement human-decision making in sports competitions.
For example, in tennis from next year, the ATP Tour will replace the human line judge with an electronic system. The Tour includes the Wimbledon Championships, which defend the move on the grounds of “maximum accuracy”. The US and Australian Opens have already replaced human line judges and the French Open is the only major tennis tournament that is keeping them!
Cricket is another sport in which technology plays an important part in deciding who is in and who is out, including ‘Hawk-Eye’, ‘Snickometer’ and ‘Hot-Spot’.
Technology is also used in hockey and volleyball in decision making, to mention two other sports.
But perhaps the most controversial of all the sports using technology is football with the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system, which is used to review and correct on-field referee’s decisions. It was introduced in 2019 by the English Premier League, which, in its defence, claims that:
“Premier League data shows an increase in correct decisions from 82% pre-VAR to 96% with VAR, highlighting its effectiveness in reducing errors.”
However, VAR has been criticised generally as being too slow and keeping the fans in the stadiums in the dark.
Also, according to Dr Tom Webb of Coventry University in the UK:
“The issue with VAR is it’s not necessarily relying on how accurate the technology is. It’s still reliant on individual judgement and subjectivity, and how you interpret the laws of the game.”
A new Book devoted entirely to the subject of VAR has been published on 7 November 2024. It is intriguingly entitled ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About VAR’ and the author is Daisy Christodooulou, a football fan.
According to her, VAR has been a disaster:
“Players hate it, managers hate it, pundits line up to pour on its decisions, and fans have coined the chant ‘it’s not football anymore’ to describe its effect on the game.”
The author points out that every other sport in the world has managed to integrate technology into its decision-making process and asks the following pertinent questions:
Why is football failing so badly?
Is it a special case, or have the game’s authorities got something wrong?
And what does the controversy about VAR tell us about the nature of authority, rationality and technology in the 21st century?
Quite an indictment on VAR!
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
