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The Premier League will push ahead with experiments in goal-line technology after being given the green light by football's rulemakers.
The system, which is being developed by the company Hawk-Eye, is now set to be installed at a club's academy for further tests.
The move comes after referees' chief Keith Hackett and Premier League general secretary Mike Foster made a presentation to the International Football Association Board (IFAB) meeting in Manchester today.
Hackett said afterwards: 'We had to convince them that we had a solid base for our system coming to fruition.
'Hawk-Eye has a great reputation within tennis and cricket especially, and I would hope we could start trialling it within weeks at an academy.'
Other firms were also given the go-ahead to continue experiments including Adidas and German firm Cairos who have been struggling for two years to refine their system of a microchip inside the ball.
The French top flight have given their backing to the Hawk-Eye system, while the Italian FA are championing their own one, which works in a similar way involving goal-line cameras linked to a computer.
The Hawk-Eye proposal involves a camera taking 600 frames a second on the goal-line which is analysed by computer and sends an immediate signal to the referee's headset or a device on his wrist.
The equipment has been tested at Fulham's Craven Cottage ground but has had to be removed on match days. The testing at the academy will at first take place on a non-match basis - simply because incidents where there is debate are few and far between.
The IFAB today laid down four criteria for the goal-line technology systems: that technology should only apply to goal-line decisions, that the systems must be 100% accurate, that the signal to the referee must be instantaneous, and that the signal is only communicated to the match officials.
FA chief executive Brian Barwick, who was hosting the meeting, told a news conference: 'This is a critical moment and there is a general consensus that this is the time to move forward.
'We all believe that goal-line technology is the right way forward for the game. These incidents are happening on a regular basis.
'If we are going to introduce it, it has got to be 100% accurate.'
The IFAB also backed a controversial decision to prevent a Muslim girl from taking part in a match while wearing a headscarf.
Asmahan Mansour, 11, was banned from the competition in Laval, Canada, by a Muslim referee after she refused to remove the hijab.
FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi said: 'The laws of the game must be applied when you play association football.'
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