Once firmly opposed to the intrusion of video technology into football, Sepp Blatter is now the beating radical heart of FIFA when it comes to this issue.
Having once held to the quaint and rather beautiful vision that football should be the same whether its played at the World Cup final or a game between a bunch of cloggers on a park, he is now proposing that a 'TV referral' system be trialled at next year's U20's World Cup.
He envisages a system not dissimilar to American football where managers would be allowed one or two challenges per half. The referee will observe the incident on the monitor and then will make the decision as to whether he wishes to change his mind.
Then there must be a monitor by the television company, then the referee and coach look at it and the referee may then change his mind as is the case in tennis, for instance.
I hope to bring it to the attention and hopefully we can find a league, semi-professional or professional, that will try to do it.
It can only be done where there is television coverage of matches, or in one of FIFA's cmpetitions, a youth competition in FIFA, an under-20 like next year we are in New Zealand so we could test such challenge calls.
