Discussions with the NFL were confirmed to news agency Reuters during the Soccerex Asian Forum in Singapore by Mario Hanus, sales director at German manufacturer Cairos Technologies.
He said the technology was first developed to assist soccer referees in determining whether a ball has fully went over the goal-line, but the reluctance of rule-making body International Football Association Board to accept the innovation prompted Cairos to look at other sports.
“In American football you have the same situation, you need to cross a line and the ball needs to be over the line one hundred percent and they [the players] are always above the ball [covering it],” said Hanus.
Cairos say their system, on which they have been working for nearly a decade, is cheaper than the introduction of two additional referees behind the goal-lines, a FIFA-sanctioned experiment to be run by a number of national and continental competitions like the Champions League next season.
