The issue of goalline technology is on the agenda for the International Football Association Board's (IFAB) October meeting, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said Wednesday. Blatter told a news conference in Singapore that IFAB, the body responsible for determining the rules of the sport, had agreed in their July meeting to put the issue on their agenda for their official gathering in Wales from Oct. 19-20. “At this meeting (in October), we will bring the point of goalline technology,” Blatter told reporters. “It is now on the this agenda.” The debate on the of the use of technology was raised again when England's Frank Lampard was denied a goal in their World Cup second round defeat to Germany in June, despite television replays showing the ball clearly crossing the goalline. Soccer remains one of the few major sports to resist the use of technology, with tennis, cricket, rugby, NBA basketball and American football all using applied science successfully. Blatter, who is in Singapore to open the men's and women's soccer tournaments for the inaugural Youth Olympic Games, said that he was in favor of using technology to rule on such contentious decisions providing it was reliable. “My personal opinion on goal technology has never changed, I have said if we have an accurate and simple system then we will implement but so far we have not had a simple, nor an accurate system.” IFAB decided in July to expand their use of two additional referees officiating matches with the method also being employed in the Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup this season after it debuted in the Europa League last year. The 74-year-old, flanked by AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam, FIFA executive committee member Chung Mong-joon and Singapore FA president Zainudin Nordin, said that a number of groups would be able to present their solutions at the meeting. “The Cairos-Adidas system said they will have something more simple and the Italian group presented by the Italian FA said they now have a system which is absolutely accurate. “We have the Hawk-Eye again and then a Swiss watch company Longines, they said we have something that will beat everything so in this meeting all of these people can come and present their different items.” German manufacturers Cairos Technologies told Reuters last month that they had been asked to make changes to their product by IFAB but had heard nothing from the law-making board after rectifying the technology to appease them. Blatter defends FIFA Clubs angry at the timing of international friendly matches should aim their frustrations at the national associations who arrange them and not FIFA, the organization's president Sepp Blatter said Wednesday. More than 50 international friendly matches will take place across the world Wednesday, an official FIFA match day, just when many European league seasons are starting and their Asia counterparts resume after the World Cup. “There are two dates in the year for friendly matches but it means you do not have to use these dates,” Blatter told reporters in Singapore. “If you want to play a friendly match then bring your second or third team, nobody tells you to promote the best players. Don't make a lot of noise about that (the timing) by saying that FIFA is silly... it is not FIFA.”
