Ray Parlour supportive of video assistance for referees
Friday 8 January 2016 12:07, UK
Ray Parlour supports plans to introduce more video technology in football but is concerned they may delay the game.
Trials have taken place in the Dutch league to give referees assistance from officials with access to video footage when making major decisions over penalties, goals and red cards.
Video technology was used in 45 matches over the past two seasons and has been so successful that plans are being developed to undertake a similar trial in England, potentially in next season's FA Cup.
In the Dutch experiment, 1,890 decisions were made, including 51 game-changing decisions, and the average time taken to make a decision was 11 seconds.
The plans will be put to the vote at International Football Association Board's 130th Annual General Meeting in March, where delegates will be given the "strongest possible recommendation" to agree.
Despite being generally supportive of the plans, former Arsenal and England midfielder Parlour admits to being concerned it would slow the game down.
"It can help the refs but the problem is the delays," he told Sky Sports Now. "You can't keep stopping and starting the game; football is a quick game and it's not like cricket or rugby.
"I think it would definitely help the game on the key decisions. Goal-line technology has definitely helped the game and made a difference to whether teams are successful or not."
Gijs de Jong, the Dutch FA's director of operations, says there is no reason why modern football should not be maximising video technology to improve the level of "honesty" in the sport.
"We have a referee off the field who can assist the referee on the field, using the images from the cameras," De Jong told Sky Sports News HQ.
"We now limit it to three decisions - penalties, goals and red card incidents.
"We really can improve the honesty of the game without delaying the game and that is important because we don't want to change the character of the game.
"We don't expect it to be too costly. We use the technology of the broadcaster, which is already there in the stadium. It's 2016, I can't explain to my children why we don't use video replays in football to make the game more honest."
