HE has called more than a few bluffs in his time and Sepp Blatter is doing so yet again it seems.

He may be a controversial figure and on another day we may discuss how his performance measures up to that of sports administrators in this country where sexism, racism and patronage are all institutionalised.

However, in terms of on-field sport, FIFA's president has brought to the top of the agenda the use of technology with the apparent zeal of a convert.

Inevitably there have been howls of complaint, just as his previous opposition to any form of technology being introduced into decision-making, was characterised as Canuteism.

Doubtless Blatter was among those who knew his sport was crossing the Rubicon by permitting goal-line technology, which was why what seemed an easy thing to introduce was blocked for so long.

That has happened now, however and the next step is the sort of challenge system which works at the highest level in other big commercial sports and seems the best possible way of ridding football of some of its worst aspects.

Allowing managers to make challenges could, very quickly, eradicate the sort of childish histrionics on touchlines that do nothing for the sport's image while inflaming the most regressive elements among the supporters of teams supported by these badly behaved men.

If they feel that strongly about a decision let them risk making fools of themselves by challenging it. If not, the fourth official has increased authority to tell them to sit down and shut up.

Football is a passionate game, we are told, as if that excuses the tantrums and as if it is somehow unique in arousing extreme emotions. Tell that to Munster rugby supporters attending big European ties, to Andy Murray fans on tense July afternoons, to Green Bay Packers "cheeseheads", or to Indian cricket supporters. All their sports have embraced, one way or another, challenge systems which defuse accusations that mistakes, or worse, by officials have cost teams or individuals dear.

In both forms of rugby the generation of atmosphere has been helped rather than hindered by decision reviews, originally something placed in the hands of TV replay officials, but with on-field referees now increasingly quick to review their own decisions once they have seen what happened from different angles on the big screen.

In tennis, for good or ill (this is written by a career-long, unapologetically indulgent fan of one John Patrick McEnroe) the three challenge system has wiped out controversy on major calls as Hawkeye instantly determines whether balls were in or out.

In cricket, for all that the Indians continue to oppose it, there remain issues where less clear-cut technology such as Snicko and Hotspot are employed, while it can still be hard to determine, using two dimensional images, whether a ball caught low down has been taken cleanly. However for lbw shouts in particular, Hawkeye has been a boon.

It perhaps works best, though, in American football where pitch-side coaches can throw protest flags if they feel their teams have been victims of clear-cut injustice. That is the closest comparison to what Blatter is proposing because it places the onus on the coach/manager, assisted as he might be by assistants watching all the angles on television and the on-field referee.

Those who claim football is somehow unique in that there are fewer natural delays during which decisions can be reviewed offer a viewpoint that would have more credence if the sport as a whole had, by now, done something about the amount of time wasted watching prima donnas rolling around on the grass feigning injury.

More to the point, with television viewers having long been capable of running their own replays, if it is genuinely clear that a bad decision has been made it is usually obvious within seconds, invariably by the time the next stoppage and re-start of play have occurred.

Clearly anything that happened after an upheld protest would not have if play had been stopped as it should have, but should a protest prove ill-founded then play has gone on as it would have.

As for the flow of the game, it could all be sorted out in the length of time it took Roy Keane to circle the wagons round referees, Jose Mourinho to be sent to the stand or Cristiano Ronaldo to show us his full routine of impersonations: Tom Daly followed by Lazarus.

Any fear that it may be abused by coaches and managers to interrupt play could meanwhile be addressed by introducing sanctions for the cynical or the stupid who repeatedly lodge failed protests.

It must be stressed, too, that this relates only to the big money end of commercial, professional sport which is, sadly, much more about business than anything else.

So much is at stake that it is right to try to minimise the scope for human error bringing about the wrong outcomes.

The adage beloved of the old Corinthians that the referee is never more right than when he is wrong, is anachronistic and unacceptable, not least because of the way such thinking potentially exposes the lowest paid in the sport to the match-fixers.

That may be an ugliness to which the beautiful game is yet to be fully exposed, but it is only a matter of time unless, as in so many aspects of modern life, we allow technology to help smooth away the flaws.