Televised cricket received a shot in the arm when Channel 4 won the rights to show England’s home test matches and select one-day internationals. Adding to existing technologies (such as stump-cam and stump-mic) snickometer, hawk-eye and super-slow-mo action replays, have all helped to increase fans’ enjoyment of the sport. In addition, these developments have made cricket more appealing to many who were previously indifferent to its quirky charms. New technological features have helped pundits and analysts to explain the nuances and subtleties of what can, from the outset, be a baffling game.

So where does football come into this? If we believe what Sky Sports tells us, there is no more exciting spectacle than Portsmouth v Aston Villa on a wet Monday evening! But in reality it is a rare match that doesn’t have lulls, drab spells and limitless sequences of unadventurous square-balls. It is surely in broadcasters’ interests to brighten up these snoozefests. More exciting means more viewers, which means more advertising revenue. Viewers aren’t going to stay tuned just because they can now see a player’s fizzog in glorious High Definition detail. With red buttons, hundreds of channels and squillions of pounds being spent on rights to show matches, surely we’re due some sort of advance in technological wizardry to liven up football.

Super slow-mo replays of grimacing defenders mid-header; tackle snickometers revealing just how bad that last challenge was - even a clichéd Matrix-style multiple camera effect would do! Cameras in goalposts like stump-cam, or wireless cameras attached to assistant referees to give us an official’s eye view. How about some stats telling us how fast Aaron Lennon just sprinted down the flank, or what speed Peter Crouch’s shot was travelling when it burst through the back of the net?!

All viable, all possible, and none of them would interfere with the ’spirit of the game’ that the suits at Soho Square are so keen to protect. Where has four decades of televised football got us? The same replay from four different angles and a flag that pops up on the screen when someone is offside!

Do you agree that football coverage would benefit from a broader range of technological features? Can any WCH readers suggest some ideas that broadcasters could employ to enhance our viewing experience of future World Cups?

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