FIFA Will Use Goal Line Technology For Women’s World Cup

FIFA announced they will be using Hawk-Eye technology for goal-line replay during the Women’s World Cup this summer.

The news comes just two months after the U.S. Women’s National Team dropped a lawsuit against FIFA for hosting the upcoming mega-event on artificial turf.

Soccer players hate turf, and FIFA knows this. In fact, FIFA created the FIFA Quality Programme to “offer an internationally recognized and dependable industry standard for quality and reliability in the areas where it matters to football players most.” And one of those areas is “surface.” FIFA conducted their own study and found that ”Players perceive the injury risk to be higher on football turf pitches than on natural grass,” and that 59 percent of players have no experience playing on a turf surface.

So it is important that FIFA provide women’s soccer with goal line technology, a resource that has been available in the men’s game for years.

Hawk-Eye, a British company created in 2001, has successfully installed their product in a number of sports including tennis, cricket and even snooker. This year marked the first time it was used in the Australian Open.

In 2012, FIFA granted the company permission to install their product worldwide.

The Premiere League responded by installing Hawk-Eye into every stadium ground in 2013. This came as no surprise after the egregious call went against them in the 2010 world Cup against hosts Germany.

FIFA used Hawk-Eye in the Club World Cup in Japan in 2012, but switched to Germany’s GoalControl for the 2014 World Cup.

Hawk-Eye technology uses seven cameras mounted above the goal to alert the referee within a second whether the ball crossed the line or not.

The 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada will use the technology in six stadiums through the tournament which runs from June 6 to July 5.