THE GAA is hoping to use 'electronic umpires' within a year following a major research project to develop technology that would stop games being decided by disputed scores, the Sunday Tribune has learned.

Pat Daly, the GAA's director of games, said the organisation was working on technology that would tell referees if shots were wide. The GAA has been funding research at the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) for the past 18 months and saw "significant potential in the project", he said. The electronic umpiring system would be used in both football and hurling.

"CIT has been giving us very positive feedback, " Daly said.

"If all continues to go well, we hope to put the system on trial this time next year. It would probably be tried out at local club level first."

The top GAA official would not comment on how the new technology would work, but said: "We would be using a form of detection system to see if the ball passed between the posts. It would not involve video cameras."

This year's Ulster minor football final was the latest championship match to be decided by the contentious decision of an umpire. Tyrone beat Derry by a point after being awarded a score that appeared to be wide. Derry's appeal for the game to be replayed was rejected by the Ulster Council.

"There have been problems with [controversial points], I'm not going to say there haven't, " said Daly. "We're working on ways to address that." He stressed that any automatic umpiring system would have to be used "across the board, not just at the big matches in Croke Park".

Daly also revealed that the GAA began funding research into score detection technology a decade ago. "We were involved with a similar research project with the Department of Electrical Engineering at University College Galway around 1997 and 1998. But in the end there were too many limitations to that system.

There would have been problems in windy conditions for example. It wasn't a realistic option."

Meanwhile, Dr Paul Hawkins, a leading UK expert on sports technology, said he would be keen to develop officiating technology for the GAA if the CIT project didn't yield results. The engineer . . . who created 'Hawk-Eye', the virtual reality system used by officials at major tennis tournaments . . . is currently working on a goal-line video camera system for the FA's Premier League.

"If we were approached by the relevant body, it's something we would definitely like to do. I think it would be very achievable, " he said. "We've looked at something similar for Australian Rules. We'd use a series of strategically positioned cameras to track the flight of the ball." The referee would be told if the shot had passed between the posts "within about half a second", Hawkins said, adding that his company could probably develop such technology "for half a million pounds".

The GAA said it had been "monitoring the progress of Hawk-Eye" but that there were drawbacks to videobased umpiring systems, including high operating costs and problems in bad weather.