Premier League poised for goal-line technology

Goal-line technology could be used in the Premier League as early as the start of the 2012-13 season.

The law-making International Football Association Board will rule in March 2012 on whether to approve the system. If it gets the green light, Fifa president Sepp Blatter says leagues can use it from the start of the 2012-13 season, if "accurate and affordable".

The Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, has already said England's elite division will use it as soon as it is allowed.

Blatter, who opposed goal-line technology for years, added that it could also be used at the 2014 World Cup. Private trials of different systems are taking place this year, and if the international board approves one in March it will be incorporated into the laws of the game in July 2012.

However Blatter, speaking in Brazil ahead of tomorrow's qualifying draw for the 2014 World Cup there, said that it was yet to be decided whether the recent experiment of using two additional referees behind the goal-line, which has been trialled in Europa League games, would be "installed as a general rule".