International football tournaments have often delivered innovation, be it in playing styles, tactical approaches or the Romania team all dyeing their hair blond at France 1998. In recent years we have been able to enjoy (if that’s the right word) another type of novelty: the technological developments that aim to help officials effectively apply the rules.
This summer in Germany has continued the trend. Euro 2024 has brought the introduction of what Uefa calls “connected ball technology”, a far less descriptive name for what cricket has long called the “snickometer”: a device that, through sound, picks up physical contact between objects. In cricket, there is a microphone in the stumps to capture the slightest snick between bat and pad. At the Euros, there is a microchip in the ball which performs the same function, and the devious little so-and-so recorded the slightest contact with Loïs Openda’s hand during Belgium’s defeat by Slovakia to make him the first player to be undone by “snicko”.
