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Former UEFA Boss Says No to Goal-Line Technology
Keith Moore | September 17, 2010

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Stockholm. Lennart Johansson, former UEFA president, believes goal-line technology has no place in football, saying the game is for “humans and not for robots.”

Johansson also said he backed England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup, and criticized the standard of play at this year’s World Cup.

The 80-year-old, who held European football’s top job for 17 years, also had strong words about FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter.

Johansson said his successor at UEFA, Michel Platini, had made the right decision by rejecting calls for the introduction of technology to determine whether the ball crossed the goal line.

“I believe in the idea that Platini put forward when he said we could have two extra men on the field,” he said. “Perhaps two referees, but then one behind each goal standing there watching, who could see immediately when the ball is inside the line or not.”

“I face facts that referees are human and humans make mistakes,” he added. “This is a game for humans and not for robots.”

Johansson said he would have encouraged UEFA’s executive committee to back England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup if he still held the presidency.

“It’s time now for England, they haven’t had it since 1966,” he said. “They can for sure arrange it, they know how to do it.”

In his office at Sweden’s national stadium in Stockholm, Johansson said that founding the Champions League, club football’s most prestigious competition, was perhaps his greatest legacy.

He said that in general the standard of play in matches between Europe’s top club teams was higher than at the World Cup, but that he was still surprised by the lack of quality on show at the recent World Cup in South Africa.

Johansson was still UEFA president when South Africa was awarded the continent’s first World Cup. He said he backed its bid early on after his fears about organization and security were allayed.

Blatter has praised South Africa’s hosting of the tournament, but Johansson said Blatter wasn’t always so supportive of taking the World Cup to Africa.

“He was strongly against it,” said Johansson, adding that Blatter only changed his mind “because of this award he was given by the United Nations, not because he liked the idea to go to Africa.”


Associated Press