JOIN USWith two weeks to go to the finals of the football World Cup in Brazil, small German start-up company GoalControl has the technology ready make the calls cheered and challenged around the globe: goal or no goal.
This year's World Cup will be the first when 'goal-line technology' will be used, years after the concept was introduced to sports such as cricket, rugby and tennis.
The system, which costs 100,000 - 170,000 euros ($136,000-$2 31,200) a year, makes use of 14 cameras. They send digitalised pictures to a data room, sitting in the top of the stadium.
After analysing the data, the message will be sent to a special watch, worn by the referee with the word "GOAL" if the balls is over the line. The process takes less than a second.
"We hope to convince some sceptics about the technology," said Dirk Broichhausen, managing director and co-founder of GoalControl.
FIFA was persuaded to move to technology after an incident in the 2010 World Cup when England's Frank Lampard was denied a goal against Germany when his shot hit the bar and officials failed to spot it had bounced down just behind the line.
That would have tied the match at 2-2 but Germany went on to win 4-1.
The incident had echoes of a famous incident in 1966 when England beat West Germany 4-2 in the final at Wembley, helped by a similar disputed goal that was given to the English on this occasion.