WORLD SPORTS SCENE : Soccer Wants No Part of Instant Replay

The international governing body of soccer, the sport known to most of the world as football, needed only a few seconds Saturday to settle an issue that American football has been discussing, debating, dissecting and experimenting with for at least a decade.

Instant replay.

“We will never accept this,” Harry Cavan, technical committee chairman for the International Federation of Assn. Football, said at a meeting near FIFA’s Zurich headquarters.

Next item.

Cavan’s potentially shortsighted declaration--never is a long time--followed an impressive display of the latest instant replay technology, Telebeam. It was presented by RAI, the Italian television network, for FIFA officials and representatives of the 24 World Cup teams that will play this summer in Italy.

The technical director for RAI-Milan, Dr. Franco Visintin, used phrases such as “computer assisted design” and “schematic figures” to describe Telebeam. But basically what it does is duplicate every conceivable camera angle, even from below the field. It makes video-taped instant replays used by U.S. networks look like something from the leather-helmet days.

Visintin admitted that the technology is not new. Architects and scenic designers have been using it for years to shape ideas. But RAI was the first to adapt it to television four years ago. Since then, the network has been refining Telebeam for use in soccer through the telecasts of Italian League games.

On Saturday, RAI, the host broadcaster for the World Cup, unveiled it for FIFA. In one example, there was a dispute in a game between between rivals Inter-Milan and AC Milan because a player was not whistled for off side. The taped instant replay was inconclusive. Telebeam showed that he was off side by exactly 40 centimeters.

In another example, a goal for Spain against Brazil in the first round of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico was not allowed because the referee said the ball did not break the plane. Brazil won, 1-0. Telebeam showed that the goal should have counted.

One would think that FIFA would be pleased to have Telebeam as a referee’s aid.

The reaction, in fact, was the opposite.

Not only does FIFA not want to use this technology, it will not allow RAI to use it on the giant scoreboard screens in stadiums while games are in progress.

That is because FIFA, before considering any new undertaking, first must consider the effect it will have on the fans. Soccer fans in some countries, as you might have heard, are not the sort to take in the opera later.

The situation can be threatening enough for a referee if the hooligans think he has done in their team with a bad call. Given conclusive evidence by RAI, who knows what they might do?

“I believe I’m very clear about this,” said Hermann Neuberger, chairman of FIFA’s World Cup organizing committee. “If you consider having replays after controversial decisions during a match, there will be a lot of trouble.

“If you were to see that the camera has seen a certain situation differently, it would heat up the atmosphere against the referee. We are not against technology, but it should be in the right time and place.”

Guido Tognoni, who heads FIFA’s press department, said he will even ask RAI to delay replays of controversial decisions shown on home-television in Italy for several hours, or even a day, after games to allow for a cooling off period.

“We have to keep the emotions down,” he said. “We cannot deny RAI its Telebeam, but we can ask them to make sensitive use of it.”

FIFA also objected to the use of instant replay as an officiating tool because of the possibility that it would delay the game.

That is a common complaint in the NFL, but American football is a sport in which players are accustomed to standing around. In soccer, there are no offensive, defensive and special platoons, and play is continuous.

Neuberger said FIFA doctors would not approve of instant replay if it required interruptions because too much stopping and starting would cause leg cramps. In another discussion here, team doctors asked FIFA officials to consider adopting measures that would make it easier for players to get water during games.

Visintin was not sure whether Telebeam would cause delays in games. Because RAI seldom televises Italian League games live, it has not had to produce Telebeam replays on the spot. But if forced to do so, Visintin predicted the network could make a replay available “within some seconds.”

Reading them might take longer, but it appears significantly easier than looking at a video-tape.

Asked whether he believes Telebeam eventually will be used in soccer, he pointed out that he is a technician, not an administrator.

“We are ready in any case,” he said.

Actually, there is a precedent for using replays in soccer, although not Telebeam. In a game earlier this year in the Dutch first division, a midfielder for Ajax, Jan Wouters, committed a flagrant foul against a FC Volendam player when the referee was not watching. While watching the delayed telecast that night, federation officials spotted the offense and suspended Wouters for six games.

There is now a debate in Holland about whether replays should be used more frequently or not at all.

That sounds like the NFL.

So does this.

FIFA General Secretary Joseph Blatter told representatives from the 24 teams here that prolonged or improper celebrations by players after they score will not be tolerated. An example of an improper celebration, he said, is a player leaving the field to climb the screen behind a goal.

“You can jubilate when you score a goal,” Blatter said, “but you will do it like human beings.”