The Last Word: We have the technology, so let's embrace it

Modern sport was invented without either technology or the law for company. It is now seldom played without either or both dancing in dispiriting attendance. They have become the two ugly sisters without whom Cinderella can never go to the ball.

Events of recent days have merelyreinforced the pair's oppressive omni-presence, and should have convinced anyone connected with sport that unless you have one there will alwaysbe the other. That is, embrace technology for all it is worth or sit back and prepare for results to be determined in a court of a kind much different from what the original sporting pioneers had in mind.

The prospect of Watford, victims of an assistant referee's bizarre decision last weekend, missing promotion to the Premiership by a point or a single goal hardly bears thinking about. To have adjudicated that the ball entered the net when it was nowhere near was an occupational error so huge that it should encourage the seeking of alternative employment. But it would have been forgotten, or at least reduced to the subject of fierce argument down the years, but for the presence of so many sophisticated cameras. Cameras have been an integral part of football since Match of the Day strutted grainily across our screens in 1963, but the slow-mo and high-definition freeze frames now available have made it a different ball game.

It is obvious Reading's first goal against Watford would have been disallowed had the referee been able to resort to a higher authority – well, lower authority, but somebody with access to a replay. More pertinently, it would have needed the TV official to tell the men in the middle they had gone wrong. Of course, it could all have been avoided if Reading's players had fessed up, but that is another matter, and it is by no means certain that players of 50 or 100 years ago would have told the officials they were wrong. Given the absence of cameras, it can probably be taken as read that they would have remained tight-lipped.

It might be considered that football has retained a little of whatever integrity it once possessed by refusing to resort to verdicts by technology. Contentious decisions also lead to enduring debate, which embraces the very essence of and reason for bothering to watch sport. There remains no more vivid example than Geoff Hurst's 1966 World Cup Final goal, which excites the opinions of those not even born at the time.

The trouble, as administrators must fear, is that if games, especially football, refuse to acknowledge the idea of the telly ref soon, they make themselves a hostage to fortunes for lawyers. Sooner or later – and, considering so much time has already elapsed, probably sooner – football will go to law to have a result or an outcome overturned. In a way, without technology being involved, it has already happened: an independent tribunal last week dec-ided that West Ham United unfairlykept their Premier League status two seasons ago at the expense of Sheffield United. By fielding Carlos Tevez, whose transfer was ineligible, West Ham gained at least three extra points to which they were not entitled.

The saga still has some way to run, and the Court for Arbitration for Sport may yet become involved but the Yorkshire club, in a wonderful North v South spat, are seeking £30m from the London club. Yet the upshot is still that Sheffield United lost their Premier League place. The argument that Tevez was not a one-man team and could not have won three points on his own is a sideshow. West Ham broke the rules.

It is the link between split-second decisions on the field of play and their effect that remains the larger concern. England's cricket team have made enough of their own bad luck recently– the latest upsurge notwithstanding – to be hardly deserving of sympathy, but two contentious incidents arguably hindered their advance in a substantive fashion. At Lord's in 2007, England had outplayed India, who were hanging on desperately when Monty Panesar had Sreesanth palpably leg before, which would have made the tourists all out. The umpire, Steve Bucknor, declined to raise his finger. Rain came, India survived and were sufficiently empowered to win the next Test and take the series.

Then in Kandy last winter, with time running out, it was England who were hanging on for a draw when Ryan Sidebottom was given out lbw despite having, as they say, hit the cover off the ball. Ten minutes later England had lost the match. In neither of these cases did England have recourse to appeal. They were submitted as compelling evidence by the cricket historian David Frith in this year's Wisden Almanack, as he advocated the immediate use of any technology that can be conclusive.

Slowly, cricket is learning. The experimental referral system which was permitted in the series between Sri Lanka and India recently was successful, and nobody has claimed the on-field umpires involved have had to seek psychological help for injured feelings.

The disadvantage to verdict by technology is that only certain games will have the benefit – the televised ones. The rest would be played under the traditional jurisdiction. So, in rugby union, for instance, only one Premiership game a weekend has the benefit of cameras. And while all cricket Test matches are televised, there are many occasions when only one domestic match is shown, with the rest operating normally. That makes for an unbalanced state of affairs.

It is a wonder matters have not been taken further. Football may have to alter its stance. It already allows appeals against refereeing decisions about punishments imposed on players, the latest being England's captain, John Terry, who was helped by lawyers over his red card at Manchester City. There is a sense of foreboding about the thought that Terry and his ilk may cut out the middle men by merely having their brief sitting in the dug-out.