Football considers shirt chip

  • Last Updated: February 14 2013, 12:52 GMT

Football lawmakers will be asked to consider the use of an electronic chip in players' shirts which could potentially warn of medical problems.

Football will consider new technology designed to prevent health problems

Electronic communication between players and staff in the technical area is currently banned.

But the Scottish Football Association are asking the International FA Board, the body which draws up football's laws, to make an exception for technology in the collar of a player's shirt which can feed back data such as heart performance, body temperature and the distance being covered.

It is hoped this will help to prevent serious health problems, such as the heart attack suffered by Fabrice Muamba on the pitch during Bolton's FA Cup tie with Tottenham last season.

The issue will be raised in Edinburgh on 3 March at the annual meeting of the IFAB, which is made up of the four home nations and Fifa, who are understood to be wary of allowing the electronic chips.

Scottish FA chief executive Stewart Regan said it was a "no brainer" if there were medical benefits.

"These chips can monitor heart performance, distance run, changes in a person's body functions what's operating differently to how it was in the first half," he said.




"There is one school of thought that it's a pure game and shouldn't be any technology and another that thinks if you can make players medically safer why shouldn't it be considered?"
