FIFA president Sepp Blatter has declared that technology to determine whether the ball has crossed the goal line will be ready for next year’s World Cup finals in Germany.

“I am convinced it will be ready for the World Cup,” Blatter told the London Evening Standard newspaper in an interview published on Thursday.

FIFA are to experiment with the technology at the world under-17 championship in Peru from September 16 to October 2.

A “Smartball” which involves a microchip sensor in a ball sending a signal to the referee, has been developed by Adidas, together with German company Cairos AG and the German Fraunhofer Institute.

Blatter still opposes the use of video evidence in matches and cited Liverpool’s controversial goal against Chelsea in their Champions League semi-final to justify his scepticism.

“They had 12 cameras there and you could not see (if the ball had crossed the line). We believe the human side of the game should be kept,” said Blatter.

“We did do experiments with two referees on the field and it’s not a bad idea. But the referees were against it. They want to be the boss alone.”

Blatter also confirmed that FIFA would intoroduce a new stystem of refereeing for next year’s World Cup. Unhappy with the standard of officiating at the last World Cup in South Korea and Japan in 2002, he hopes to improve standards by using officials who worked together before..

“They will only work in trios that have been pre-selected,” Blatter added. “We’ve been tough on them so that there is uniformity of the interpretation of the laws. I take part of the responsibility for last time.

“I hope we will have the best referees on the market and avoid the kind of situations we had in 2002.”