Football Enters The 21st Century With Goal-Line Technology

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) has unanimously approved the use of goal-line technology after months of exhaustive tests were carried out on two systems called Hawk-Eye and GoalRef.

The technology, which has also been signed off by world football's governing body, FIFA, will first be used at December's FIFA Club World Cup and, if successful, at the 2013 Confederations Cup and 2014 World Cup.

The English Premier League, the world's richest football league, welcomed IFAB's decision.

"The Premier League has been a long-term advocate of goal line technology," the EPL said in a statement.

"We will engage in discussions with both Hawk-Eye and GoalRef in the near future with a view to introducing goal-line technology as soon as is practically possible."

Hawk-Eye is already used in other sports such as tennis and cricket. It uses high speed cameras to track the ball on the pitch, then triangulation to pinpoint its exact location. It can report exactly where a ball has landed and create a record of the path it has taken.

GoalRef which was developed by researchers from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute uses antennas to create low intensity magnetic fields in and around the goals. A tiny electronic device is embedded in the ball so whenever it passes the goal line it changes the magnetic field. This is detected and analysed by a processing unit which can precisely locate the ball to see if it fully crossed the line.

Both systems send an encrypted radio signal to alert game officials, with each process taking less than one second to complete.