Huddersfield Town’s Hawkeye failure echoes Sheffield United “occlusion” shambles at Aston Villa as boss speaks out

Despite the technology’s advertised accuracy rate, and the fact it is tested rigorously before each game, the technology failed to signal that the ball had gone over the line in Huddersfield’s clash with Blackpool.

It brought to mind memories of a similar scenario in United’s first game back after the first Covid-19 lockdown, when Ollie Norwood’s free-kick went over the line – but the Hawkeye technology failed to alert the referee.

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The match was eventually drawn and Villa missed out on relegation by a single point.

An EFL statement this morning read: “The EFL is incredibly frustrated that a technology failure at Huddersfield Town and Blackpool has overshadowed a fantastic weekend of action on the pitch.

“We have now received an initial assessment from Hawk-Eye, the providers of the Goal Line Technology service in the Championship, that during a second-half incident with Huddersfield attacking, the match officials did not receive a signal to their watch or earpiece as, due to multiple factors, the ball was no longer being tracked following it entering the Blackpool goal area.

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“Separately, PGMOL have confirmed officials were unsighted due to obstruction by players and therefore unable to award a goal.

“Whilst the system was tested and functional prior to the start of the game, further information is expected from both Hawk-Eye and PGMOL following a full review of the incident.

“Technology is there to support the decision-making processes of match officials in the Championship and it failing in such a manner on Sunday is a matter of great concern.

“For clarity, the referee’s decision is final and the match result stands.”

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Huddersfield manager Danny Schofield claimed the goal-line technology malfunction cost his team a point as they went down 1-0 to Blackpool.

"When I went to speak to him at the end, I was very emotional and he was pointing at his watch, because he was going off goal-line technology,” Schofield said.

“So it's difficult to pin the blame on the ref because it was down to the technology and I'm not sure if he can overrule that. It would certainly take a brave man to do so.”

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