
For the past month, soccer fans from around the world were glued to their television sets feasting on the global showcase that is the FIFA World Cup, which just concluded in South Africa. Vuvuzelas buzzed, incredible goals were scored, yet the global event also reactivated a vigorous debate on the introduction of a goal-line technology in soccer. Before he made a dramatic U-turn, Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, posited that any technology would disrupt the world's most popular sport. Was he right?
He was, of course, talking of disruption in the literal sense. Without a doubt, the introduction of goal line technology will halt the natural rhythm of the game as referees pause to consult with one another and await that confirmatory text message. For Blatter and the soccer romantics, the introduction of technology would forever alter the face of the game.
But the more interesting question is whether this technology will disrupt the game in the business sense. Here a definition is in order. A business disruption, at its most basic, is a trade-off: it occurs in an existing market when an offering is introduced that performs better in some important way for stakeholders than current alternatives do but doesn’t perform as well in some other ways they don’t value as much.
For many technology opponents, the negative side of the trade-off is all too obvious: They argue that adoption will damage a critical aspect of soccer’s value proposition – the universality of the game. According to this line of thinking, a fundamental strength of the game is that it is played according to the same rules and methods of refereeing everywhere at every level, whether in a social game in the dusty streets of Ouagadougou, a pub game in England, or a World Cup game in South Africa. Uniformly applying goal-line technology would surely raise the cost of the game for too many a player or, if applied only in certain circumstances, undermine its global cohesiveness.
For technology supporters, though, the positive side of the trade-off is for all to see. Indeed, goal-line technology would satisfy the referee’s functional job of making sure the correct decisions are made, the emotional job of feeling in control of the game, and the social job of being perceived by both players and fans as a capable and dependable decision-maker. So the value proposition it represents would be compelling to the Jorge Larriondas of this world.
More subtle emotional benefits may be at play here as well: In my many attempts to woo my American friends to what I consider to be the world’s most beautiful game, for instance, they almost consistently site how outdated the sport is, pointing as evidence to such glaring errors as when referee Larrionda failed to award Frank Lampard's superb lofted strike that landed feet over the line behind the keeper during the England-Germany match. This was, without a doubt, an error that would be quickly remedied by consulting the instant-replay technology already the norm in any more technologically modern sport, like, say American football.
Which, then, is more valuable? The flow and the universality of the game or the accuracy of its result? There’s no easy answer here. And neither is there a single, non-contentious answer for all the stakeholders—the fans, the players, the owners, the referees. But as FIFA continues to ponder the adoption of goal-line technology, it will get a more complete picture of all the trade-offs involved by answering the following questions:
• Jobs: What spectator jobs will the goal-line technology satisfy? What about the players’ jobs? The owners’? And the referees’?
• Value proposition: How will technology change the value proposition for the soccer-loving fan? Will the experience for fans, players, and referees in both the amateur and professional soccer leagues be drastically different?
• Trade-offs: What will fans, players, and referees gain or lose from the adoption of this technology? What can be learned from cricket, tennis, rugby, and many other sports that have successfully embraced the use of such technologies?
If goal-line technology fully satisfies the jobs of all key stakeholders in the game, offers the right trade-offs for a compelling value proposition, then, some disruption may be a necessary evil.

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