| Newcastle call on FA to punish Nigel de Jong over Hatem Ben Arfa tackle • United send 'strongly worded' letter to the FA• 'The tackle was unnecessary and used excessive force'Newcastle United have called on the Football Association to take action against the Manchester City midfielder Nigel de Jong over the tackle which left Hatem Ben Arfa with a double leg fracture. The club have written to the FA to ask it to look into the incident, which went unpunished by the match referee, Martin Atkinson.A statement said: "Newcastle United have today written a strongly worded letter to the Football Association in relation to the tackle by Manchester City's Nigel de Jong on Hatem Ben Arfa in Sunday's Premier League fixture, which resulted in Ben Arfa sustaining a broken tibia and fibula of his left leg."The club has asked the FA for the appropriate action to be taken against De Jong for the tackle which, in the club's opinion, was unnecessary and used excessive force."Bert van Marwijk yesterday withdrew the midfielder from his Holland squad for the forthcoming Euro 2012 qualifiers against Moldova and Sweden as a direct result of the challenge, which he described as "wild and unnecessary".Newcastle have also called on the referees' ruling body to investigate the performance of the officials in the game, during which the visitors conceded a controversial penalty and were denied what they believe should have been a spot-kick of their own.The statement continued: "Newcastle will also be writing to the appropriate body regarding the performance of the match officials, specifically the referee, in relation to a number of incidents during the game, including the tackle on Ben Arfa."Ben Arfa was carried from the pitch on a stretcher just minutes into the 2-1 defea after being brought down by De Jong. Atkinson saw nothing wrong with the Holland international's challenge and did not award a free-kick.However, the Newcastle manager, Chris Hughton, normally a model of composure, was furious. Speaking after the game, he said: "Everyone will have their own opinion, but it was a tackle that did not need to be made."Newcastle UnitedManchester CityThe FAguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Nigel de Jong in talks over new Manchester City deal despite being dropped by Holland Nigel de Jong set to continue talks over new Manchester City contract after being dropped by Holland. telegraph.co.uk |
Goalline technology moves closer The International Football Association Board is meeting with goalline technology high on the agenda. Will it finally happen?Behind its bling-encrusted facade football remains, in many ways, a rather old-fashioned game. It is a sometimes anachronistic world in which players routinely address their manager as "boss" or "gaffer", trade unions retain considerable power and attitudes to women often seem stuck in a 1950s timewarp.This slightly retro feel partly extends to modern technology. Although dressing-room lockers are littered with the latest digital gizmos and no leading club is complete without a sports science department, in one key respect, the sport looks positively Luddite."I cannot believe that we are still not using goalline technology," says the former referee Dermot Gallagher. "As a boy one of my strongest memories was seeing a man walking on the moon, live on television. That was more than 40 years ago and yet we somehow cannot use technology to decide whether a ball has crossed the line."But things could change as early as next year. Today, at the Celtic Manor resort in South Wales, the International Football Association Board convenes for its annual business meeting with goalline technology high on the agenda.If IFAB – the guardians of the game's laws, whose eight votes are divided between Fifa (who hold four) and the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FA's – decide there is a case for its implementation the matter will be put to the vote at next March's AGM.While England and Scotland have long pushed for goalline technology, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, remain implacably opposed to it – or at least they did until Frank Lampard saw his World Cup "goal" against Germany wrongly chalked off after clearly crossing the line.Multiple, excruciatingly embarrassing, replays appear to have prompted a volte-face in the corridors of Fifa's Zürich headquarters and, earlier this month, football's world ruling body invited 17 international companies specialising in goalline technology to make individual product presentations. These featured 13 different systems but essentially fall into two technological models with installation costs estimated at around £250,000 per ground.Today, IFAB will discuss the presentations while considering versions of both the camera-based Hawk-Eye system used in cricket since 2001 and tennis since 2006 and the "micro-chip in the ball" idea developed by Adidas and Cairos technologies."Fifa's plan would be to appoint an independent company to be responsible for testing the chosen system and it looks pretty promising that will happen," says Paul Hawkins, managing director and devisor of Hawk-Eye.Christian Holzer, the managing director of Cairos, hopes his German company's brainchild will triumph. "We're using technology that is 100% accurate and adds fairness to the game," he says. Cairos involves the installation of fine cables beneath the penalty area and behind the goal which generate a weak magnetic field capable of "speaking" to the sensor and transmitter contained within the ball's microchip. Receivers behind the goal detect when it has crossed the line before transmitting data to a central computer which alerts the referee via a radio signal delivered within a split second. "The chip has no impact on the ball's handling," adds Holzer. "It's right in its centre in a very robust mounting."Hawk-Eye would see six cameras programmed to recognise the ball as the "object of interest" operating at 500 frames a second positioned on the bylines, above and just in front of each goal. Images of its flight are processed by computers and, if the ball is judged to have crossed the line, a signal reaches the referee via a watch or earpiece within 0.5 seconds.If one of Fifa's historical objections to goalline technology – that it may not be sufficiently accurate – is fast fading, concerns that it will damage the games's universality linger. This principle dictates that World Cup games are subject to the same rules as Sunday league fixtures but would be destroyed by the piecemeal introduction of goalline technology; something far too expensive for smaller professional clubs to even contemplate purchasing."In terms of cost just look at tennis," counters Hawkins. "They have firms such as Rolex sponsoring their systems. I've no doubt football teams would be able to do the same – and we would install it free of charge in every Premier League ground if we could have rights to sell the sponsorship."While the former referee Jeff Winter is in favour of goalline technology he worries about the cost of a rarely used facility for which lower division clubs could not realistically attract sponsorship. "Officials want it and, although I don't personally recall many controversies over goalline decisions, I'd like to see it," he says. "But foolproof systems cost a fortune and many cash-strapped clubs wouldn't be able to justify the outlay for the few times it was needed."FifaLouise Taylorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Lyon v Benfica: live Follow live commentary of the Champions League Group B match between Lyon and Benfica at Stade de Gerland on Wednesday Oct 20 2010, kick-off 19.45 BST. telegraph.co.uk |
Galaxy Midfielder Lewis to Bow Out at End of Season Galaxy midfielder Eddie Lewis plans to retire from the game at the end of this season, the player said Wednesday. feeds.nytimes.com |