Yesterday, Sepp Blatter, on day release from the nursing home, spoke about the use of video technology (again) and (again) basically said that it ain’t gonna happen.

The debate about video technology has reached fever pitch in recent weeks and reached an all-time high when Ireland were cheated out of a place in the World Cup by Thierry Henry.

Sidestepping the issue of whether video technology should be introduced to avoid a repeat of such a situation, Blatter condemned the “blatant unfair play” and hinted that there could be some form of punishment for Thierry Henry.

Kind of missing the point a bit there Sepp.

Punishing Thierry Henry now will not make the game fairer, it won’t put the Irish back in the World Cup and it won’t silence the growing number of conspiracy theorists out there.

Blatter again trotted out his argument that football should not lose its “human face” but he is sounding more and more like a man who lives in the past and refuses to change with the times.

The call for video technology has reached new heights over recent years not because the game is more corrupt than it has ever been, not because referees are worse than they have ever been, not because players are cheating more than they ever did and not because the game is faster than it has ever been.

The call for video technology has reached these new heights because video technology is there.

The very first football match to be televised was over seventy years ago (Blatter probably watched it). I have not seen it myself but I can just imagine what it must have been like… pretty painful by today’s standards.

Most games in the “good old days” however, were not even recorded. Who knows how many dodgy decisions went unnoticed during those times?

As a supporter or a manager,  you just had to accept the referee’s decisions. You may have thought you saw something but you had no proof and the ref’s decision is final. Not ideal but with no better alternative available, that’s the way it was.

Referees were not initially implemented in games because they provided a “human face”, they were implemented because there was no other way to ensure that the rules were observed and that disputes on the field would be settled by an independent third party.

Now, there is another way.

No one is talking about removing the human face that is the referee, referees will always be needed on the field of play.

What we are talking about is taking advantage of the fact that at most matches, there are a plethora of cameras recording the action from all kinds of angles.

Thanks to digital technology, we can pause the action, rewind the action, zoom in on the action and we can do this over and over again without any loss in the glorious HD picture quality. We can also do this within seconds of the event – literally at the touch of a button.

By refusing to acknowledge that this technology could be used to make the game fairer and, as a result, better for all concerned, he really does come across as some kind of unenlightened simpleton who still believes the world is flat and if you walk too far, you will fall off the edge.

Anyway Blatter, I hope you enjoyed your day out. The good news is that medical advances in the field of Alzheimers Disease are coming on leaps and bounds… but you’re probably not interested. Have you tried leeches?