Video scrutiny of football fouls

Fouling footballers should take care following a warning this week from a leading sports lawyer, who said state-of-the-art video enhancing equipment now enables courts to see the minutiae of fancy footwork.Sports lawyer Mel Goldberg, a partner with London firm Grower Freeman & Goldberg, said his recent 1 million action brought on behalf of former Crystal Palace player Darren Pitcher signalled a new era in video evidence - notwithstanding that Mr Pitcher lost his case.The action related to an incident in 1996 when Mr Pitcher was tackled in a match away at Huddersfield Town.

He claimed the tackle was negligent and ended his career.There were no witnesses to the sequence of events of the tackle - which Mr Pitcher alleged occurred after he had kicked the ball - except for Palace coach Ray Lewington.

Mr Goldberg therefore relied on video evidence.But the video footage was not of good quality, and the lawyer said: 'If we had not been able to get the video upgraded, we would not have been able to bring the action'.KTV Ltd - a video post-production house based in London - used computer image enhancement to clarify and magnify the visuals, superimposing a time counter over the video.The finished video was recorded on to a DVD to preserve the quality and to enable accurate timing and good slow motions.

The court saw the evidence using a five-speed replay system, and three magnifications.

The DVD was also used to produce exact-frame stills.Despite expert evidence in support from Sky Sports pundit Frank McLintock and [then] Crystal Palace manager David Bassett, Mr Pitcher lost the case.Mr Goldberg said: 'The reason we were unable to prove the case was because the angle of the video was unhelpful, but this technology means that football games can now be properly post-mortemed where necessary.'Jeremy Fleming