At some point during the this year-14 Premier League season, football history will be made when technology is used to settle a contentious goal-line decision for the first time.
The system has already been deployed at last year’s Fifa Club World Cup in Japan and this year’s Confederations Cup in Brazil, but both tournaments passed off without any controversial goal-mouth incidents.
That is almost certain to change when the first of this season’s 380 Premier League games kick off on Saturday, after the English top flight became the first national championship to sanction the use of the technology.
Its arrival will mark the biggest change in the English game since the back-pass rule was introduced in 1992, preventing goalkeepers from picking up passes from team-mates and slowing the game down.
British-based firm Hawk-Eye was chosen over German company GoalControl to supply the ground-breaking technology at a meeting of Premier League club chairmen in April.
During the close season, ball-tracking cameras have been installed at all 20 Premier League grounds, from Old Trafford, home of reigning champions Manchester United, to newly-promoted Hull City’s KC Stadium.
Hawk-Eye’s system uses 14 elevated cameras (seven per goal) to track the movement of the ball around the pitch, with computer software scrutinising data from the cameras to detect whether or not the ball has crossed one of the two goal-lines.