Goal Line Technology

The sport's bosses have decided testing of the gadgetry should be extend for a year after 10 systems failed to meet governing body Fifa's requirements last month.

The International Football Association Board (Ifab) has also banned players from wearing neck-warming snoods from this July.

The announcements were made following an annual meeting of Ifab in Newport, Wales.

It has also approved the use of two additional referees' assistants during games at the 2012 European Championships in Poland and Ukraine.

This follows successful testing with Uefa president Michel Platini's five-official system in the Europa League.

Ifab is a 125-year-old body comprising officials from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, plus Fifa representing the other 204 football nations and referees, coaches and players worldwide.

Each British member has one vote, Fifa has four and a proposed new rule needs six votes to be passed.

The search is still on for a system that meets Fifa's exacting requirements over goal-line technology.

Last year, Ifab - which makes the rules that govern the game - voted 6-2 against introducing technology that would show if the ball had crossed the goal-line.

But the Frank Lampard goal that a referee missed during England's defeat by Germany in last summer's World Cup has focused minds.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter admitted Lampard's "goal that never was" prompted football's lawmakers to test goal-line gadgetry.

He said after what he called the "immense error" in South Africa it was "time to re-open the discussion on the technology".

Mr Blatter said if any system can meet their strict requirements, it could be introduced in time for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Before the meeting, he told Sky News: "I've never been resistant to anything.

"But it must be done the right way. And that's why we activated again this discussion in the international board.

"And then we will have a look at how it works."

Several of Mr Blatter's colleagues on Fifa's Executive Committee (Exco) - including UK member Geoff Thompson and Asia's representative Mohamed bin Hammam - are in favour of goal-line technology, if it is reliable and relayed swiftly to the referee.

However, tests on 10 systems at Fifa headquarters last month did not identify one that could live up to its requirements.

But news that football chiefs have not dismissed the technology may encourage potential suppliers to redouble their efforts to find a solution.

US Fifa Exco member Chuck Blazer told Sky News: "It's (Fifa's) intention is to go to something that works. So as soon as there's something that works, I think they're happy to talk about trying it."

But Uefa president Michel Platini remains staunchly opposed to its introduction, preferring an extension of the experiment with goalmouth referees.

Goal-line controversies have raged down the years, whether it is England's third goal of the 1966 World Cup final or Roy Carroll dropping a Pedro Mendes shot over the line and getting away with it in 2005 - or Lampard's recent goal-that-was-not-given, which may now lead to the introduction of technology.