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- F1 champion Sebastian Vettel misses the point with Social Media
The motorsport world has gradually started to shake off the festive cobwebs as January continues to get the new calendar year underway with a number of high profile events taking place this week.
- Social Media and London 2012
We submitted a short blog for The UK Sports Network this week with some social media predictions for 2012. Being Olympics year, and with a number of athletes on the Sine Qua Non books, including Zac Purchase and Paralympic athletes Charlotte Henshaw and Ollie Hynd, we looked at how the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the first true social media summer Games.
RT @InsideFerrari: Ferrari and Santander together until 2017 http://t.co/iGjflr3D #F1 #Sponsorship
Interesting to see how #London2012 sponsors use athletes - past and present - in activation and engagement #cisdcampbell
Can technology be used in football without damaging the sport?
Thierry Henry has quite literally single-handedly blown open the debate on whether technology should be used in football to ensure fairness and accuracy in play. There is, however, a lot of reluctance from fans to embrace the benefits of technology for fear of changing the fundamentals of the sport. There is no-one more resilient to change than a football fan, it would seem.
But technology has been implemented in other globally successful sports without detracting from the ethos of the sport. Take tennis as an example. Cries of ‘You cannot be serious’ have been left firmly in the past as new technology ensures accuracy when dubious line calls are brought into question. Rugby is another sport in which video technology has been successful in recent years. For the fans, though, football is less of a sport and more of a religion, so any changes to its rulebook evoke passionate reaction.
Just look at the reaction of the Irish after last week’s world cup qualifier. Their national squad has missed out on a much needed fillip with a place in South Africa 2010 as a result of a self-admitted handball that has gone unpunished. By keeping the ball in play by deliberately handling it to set up the winning goal, Henry has committed an offence, but he was torn between a rock and a hard place. Should he risk the backlash from his nation for denying them a win by upholding his sportsman’s honour or should he just hope to get away with it? Morally there is only one answer to that question.
Technology is not something to fear. It can have a valuable contribution in sport without defaming its principles or alienating its fans. In such instances as Henry’s handball, a quick video replay would give the referee a clearer picture and would ensure “fair play” – a term that is defined by FIFA as “Winning is without value if victory has been achieved unfairly or dishonestly.”
When FIFA holds its extraordinary meeting in Cape Town on 2nd December, the Henry incident will be reviewed and recapped. Let’s just hope that technology does not remain so easily dismissible by FIFA, since this is the next important step to ensuring ‘Fair Play’ prevails .
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