Putting goal-line technology in the spotlight

One of Ireland’s leading experts on goal-line technology believes sporting organisations investigating the possible use of Hawk-Eye and other systems must clarify, first, if they are using these systems as “decision-aiding” or “decision-making” tools while also warning that technology alone will not solve every problem that presents itself in competitive games.

Tuam man Liam Kilmartin, a lecturer with the School of Engineering and Informatics at NUI Galway, will give a free public talk entitled ‘A score or not a score – that is the question!’ in room ENG 3035 in the new state-of-the-art Engineering Building in NUI Galway next Tuesday (6pm).

Kilmartin is an authority on the subject, having been one of the first, along with his NUIG colleague Conchúr Ó Brádaigh, to investigate the possibility of using goal line technology in field sports in Ireland in the late 1990s.

The project, which ran from 1998 to 2002, was co-funded by the GAA and Enterprise Ireland [formerly Forbairt] and it focused on the development of technology to facilitate automated score detection, particularly in hurling.

“When we finished up, we had developed a prototype system for tracking the sliotars and we proposed to the GAA how we would scale it up,” says Kilmartin, who outlines the initiative was driven by GAA’s Director of Games Pat Daly, while the prototype itself was not unlike the well-known Hawk-Eye system.

“I suppose, at the time, they felt the kind of money we were indicating would be required to take the system forward was quite a lot and there were also concerns of having a two-tier system, where maybe a system like this would be deployed in Croke Park but what would you have in, say down in Pearse Stadium in Galway, or down at club level? So, they didn’t really want to go with a system at the time that would, firstly, require a lot of cash but, secondly, you would only have it in one or two places.”

In any event, the findings of Kilmartin and Ó Brádaigh – the latter of whom also worked on testing standards for sliotars – were parked to one side, although, since then, the GAA has continued to explore opportunities in this area. These have included proposals ranging from a radar related technology mooted by Cork IT to a net catcher system, whereby nets are attached to the backs of the posts.

The GAA eventually announced, only last Autumn, that Hawk-Eye technology would be used on a two-year pilot basis for all championship and hurling games played in Croke Park from 2012. A full review will be conducted at the end of the term.

Hawk-Eye is now identified as the market leader in score detection, having enjoyed considerable success, especially in tennis and cricket. It is also a technology bidding to become the official system to be used by FIFA, which finally consented to exploring the possibility of using goal line technology following a plethora of controversial calls made in both the FA Premier League and the 2010 World Cup.

Kilmartin explains that FIFA has kept pretty tight-lipped about the process of assessing the nine potential candidates who have declared an interest, but adds: “There is a laboratory over in Switzerland that is currently doing evaluations of these technologies. One of them is, allegedly, Hawkeye and the other is Goalminder.

“Hawkeye is very interesting. It is very sophisticated technology. You have got six cameras that are all focused in on the goal area and what each of the cameras is doing is taking a photograph 500 times a second. They claim that if there is only 25% of the ball showing, they can still pick it out.”

However, he notes the system, first developed by Dr Paul Hawkins in 1999 and based on the principle of triangulation using visual images and timing data, has been “shrouded in secrecy”. He says this, in itself, has raised questions – valid or not – over its reliability but adds “it appears to be quite accurate”.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.