Huddersfield Town receive 'unreserved' apology from Hawk-Eye after 'exceptional' circumstances cause Yuta Nakayama's goal to be disallowed

With his team trailing 1-0 at Blackpool in the Championship game, Huddersfield centre-back Yuta Nakayama had a shot cross the goal-line but because players were obstructing its seven camera angles, the Hawk-Eye ball-tracking technology failed to see it. Photographic evidence, however, clearly showed the whole of the ball crossing the line.

The game finished 1-0.

Championship and Premier League referees wear watches that buzz to alert them when the whole of the ball has crossed the line and because John Busby's did not, no goal was awarded.

Neither the referee nor his linesmen were convinced the ball had crossed the line and in all fairness, they would have been brave to say it had when the technology was apparently telling them otherwise.

Hawk-Eye have claimed the failure - which the League expressed its frustration at on Monday - was down to "exceptional" circumstances.

"Hawk-Eye can confirm that the ball was obscured from the goal-line technology tracking cameras as it moved over the line," the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The position of the players, the goal post and the goalkeeper impacted the cameras' line of sight to the moving ball and as such, a decision could not be determined by the system.

"We would like to reassure the football community that this was an exceptional edge-case occurrence, and we will continue to review standard operating procedures for such occurrence with the EFL and PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited).

'Hawk-Eye has spoken to both the EFL and Huddersfield Town FC and would like to apologise unreservedly to both parties."

The Hawk-Eye system, which is not deployed lower down the pyramid because of its cost, uses seven precisely-located cameras at each end of the pitch to track the movement of the ball – presumably undermining the claim that the position of the goalposts were a factor – and the referee's watch is only activated when two or more detect the ball crossing the line.

It has been in use since 2012 in more than 15,000 matches worldwide with great success.

The company's ball-tracking equipment is also used in cricket and tennis.

It is unfortunate that the previous major malfunction by the system also cost a Yorkshire side, with Sheffield United denied a goal against Aston Villa when goalkeeper Orjan Nyland carried the ball completely over the line in the first game after football’s lockdown, at Villa Park in June 2020.

Hawk-Eye offered a similar explanation then for the failure. Then, as now, though, the result stood.

The incident had a bearing on the result of the game, which in turn influenced Bournemouth's relegation from the Premier League, finishing a point behind Villa.

The incident serves as a warning not to put complete faith in technology which, just like the humans it is supposed to safeguard against, can also make errors - just at considerably more cost.