September 15 – Just because he is Sepp Blatter’s number two, FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke doesn’t always have to agree with his president, the debate over video replays during matches being the latest case in point.
Blatter recently stated he was in favour of coaches being allowed tennis-style challenges against contentious refereeing decisions and that as an experiment the idea could be trialled next year at the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in New Zealand provided it first gets the approval of the International FA Board.
But Valcke isn’t sure so, saying such innovations take away the very essence of football.
He is in favour of goal-line technology, which made its long-awaited World Cup introduction in Brazil and looks like it is here to stay, but not other areas of technology.
“If I may say, I’m against the use of video replay,” he was quoted as saying in Panama at the opening of the first of a series of four technical conferences discussing the Brazil World Cup. “I think goal-line technology is the maximum we should use in a game in order not to destroy the beauty, the speed and the nature of the games.”
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