Eddie McGuire: AFL needs ’Hawkeye’ microchips to fix umpiring

Eddie McGuire wants the AFL to put microchips into footballs to revolutionise goal, boundary and other umpiring decisions.

Broadcaster and former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire wants the AFL to put microchips into footballs to revolutionise goal and boundary and umpiring decisions in the way Hawkeye did in tennis.

The NRL is already looking at the chip technology so it can monitor forward passes.

In the AFL, the chips would be able to check if a ball hit the post, was touched or if it had gone out of bounds.

The result could instantly show up on the scoreboard, as well as on television broadcasts, ending the delay of reviewing footage, as well as camera angle challenges.

The idea is one of hundreds being floated at the SportNxt conference in Melbourne, which starts on Wednesday.

Eddie McGuire will be part of SportNxt in Melbourne. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos)

Sports leaders from around the world, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, Lord Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, Megan Rapinoe, captain of the United States soccer team, and Stefano Domenicali, president of Formula 1, will attend.

AFL chief Gillon McLachlan, NRL chief Andrew Abdo, Netball Australia chief Kelly Ryan, Andrew Westacott, boss of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation and David Hill, who has worked as an executive producer on the Super Bowl, American Idol and set up the Premier League coverage on Sky Sports in Britain, were also speaking at the three-day event.

McGuire said sport needed to throw everything on the table and rethink how it was done.

He said that microchipping balls was just one idea that could future-proof the AFL.

“The NRL and the NFL are already looking at it. The chip goes into the ball and can pinpoint its exact location,” McGuire said.

“When you’re watching the game, the screen could go red when the ball was out. People have always had the idea but the technology just hasn’t been there, but now it is.”

Megan Rapinoe, captain of the US soccer team, will also be part of SportNxt. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP)

The conference will be held at Centrepiece at Melbourne Park – new state of the art centre built on the grounds where the Australian Open is played each year.

McGuire said all sports needed to reassess where they were headed, as younger people increasingly opted for gaming consoles for their entertainment.

He said stadiums needed roofs, including the MCG, which is set for a billion dollar development of the Shane Warne Stand, formerly known as the Great Southern Stand.

“The Colosseum in Rome had a roof,” he said.

Lord Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics. (Photo by Getty Images/Getty Images)

McGuire said he hoped the conference would allow the AFL, and all Australian sports, to look forward 50 years to find the ideas that worked to keep the games relevant.

“If we go back 60 years, looking at football in 1962, it was always on Saturday afternoons at old suburban grounds, there were no night games, the broadcast was stopped at three quarter time because they wanted to protect the gate receipts, there was violence in the stands,” he said.

“The game is far better than what it used to be.”

The AFL confirmed it had been approached about the microchip technology.

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