With the Hawk-Eye system already in full flow in the sport of cricket and tennis, the English Premier League has now embraced the system with the Goal Decision System, which will be used to judge whether the ball has crossed the line, trialled at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium Thursday.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was impressed with the technology, to be used from the first game of the season on August 17, and believes it will benefit the game.
"It's the only important thing is justice," Wenger said. "The most important is to make the right decisions and this is one of the first helps.
"It's a bit more sophisticated and complicated than you would imagine at the start. It's not as easy as it looks as when you first have the idea. Between the idea and making it work you realize that it is a lot of work behind that."
Each goal will have seven cameras monitoring the situation, with the cameras able to capture the action at 340 frames a second compared with the broadcast rate of 25 frames.
When the ball crosses the line, a signal will be sent to all four of the match officials via a watch, which will vibrate, beep and display 'goal', or via an earpiece.
The referees will get the signal within a second of the goalline incident, with the broadcasters also able to relay the feed within a few seconds.
"It's a very exciting day for us as referees," Mike Riley, general manager of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, said. "We have supported the introduction of technology to help us make the goal-line decision ever since its inception.
"It's a decision of fact. There's no subjectivity about it. You consider the pace of a Premier League game, the movement of the ball, players and officials and to detect that with a human eye is incredibly difficult.
"You need a system that is 100 percent reliable and that everyone has trust in. If you look at the development of the Hawk-Eye system, it has all these features. We can take to the field safe in the knowledge that we are supported by the GDS."
