“We all live in a digital world”

Sorry Beatles’ fans but yellow submarines are no longer cool. Here’s another thing. All you need to play football is a ball. Yes, a ball is all you need. Are you following this?

Whether you kick it between jumpers off Abbey Road or at the high tech Wembley Stadium, fundamentally it’s the same. Football is arguably the simplest game in the world.

Kick the ball into the goal more times than the other team - and you win.

But with Premier League players earning around three hundred thousand pounds a week and fans paying plenty to watch them it’s a commercial enterprise like few others. Especially with television companies prepared to commit billions to show the action live to armchair supporters and others around the world.

Since the EPL kicked off we’re seeing the action from more camera angles than ever before. These give us total coverage, reveal remarkable close-ups and much else besides. 21st-century technology illustrates skill and athletic movement to take your breath away.

Goal Line Technology, GLT, has removed the ‘did it, did it not’ cross the goal line debate. And today VAR, the Video Assistant Referee, has opened another digital window. Arguably to stop, well, arguments.

But as this season has already highlighted no camera perspective is perfect and no human decision is reached without ‘forceful’ discussion.

Remarkably though, throughout all the changes, one relic of the original 19th-century rule book remains. What is it? Have to hurry you. Why it’s the assistant who runs the line with a coloured flag.

Extraordinary isn’t it that despite all the state-of-the-art tools, the Lino as we used to call them, is still to be seen waving a flag to let the referee know what’s going on.

However, at long last, FIFA who run the world game, have announced that they’re to ‘explore’ the possibility of replacing the assistant referee, as they’re now known, with technology.

Many argue that all of these changes are ruining the spirit of football. Others say it’s bonkers that viewers at home can see what fans and officials in the stadium can’t see.

So what the rule-changers must introduce are old fashioned values but with a 21st-century twist. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it, whatever argument you favour?

And funnily enough - old fashioned values with a 21st-century performance - just happens to be the philosophy of what we do at Media-Vu. Corny? Ok, but it’s true!

Public relations, video production, media training – our approach is always to combine our old fashioned standards and ethics with a modern-day attitude every step of the way.

So, to finish as we started we - act naturally. Bingo! Or should that be Ringo?

Graham, you’ve hit upon something here. For once, technology is not the answer - all that’s required is an incredibly small tweak to the rule book. Instead of making a ball that crosses the line as a definition of a goal - change it to a ball that hits the back/side of the net!

St John le Pop29th August 2019