ALL TECHNOLOGY DOES IS CONFUSE US

ALL the furore from Wednesday night’s FA Cup replay could have been avoided had the referee and video assistant been able to communicate their decisions with the supporters. At the moment, it is all cloak and dagger. When the Willian incident happened, fans both in the stadium and at home were none the wiser as to whether a review was taking place or how the officials reached their decision. Football should take its lead from rugby where the officials are miked up and viewers can understand what has happened. We may disagree with the decision, but at least we won’t be left in the dark. We are told that it has to be ‘clear and obvious’ for a penalty decision to be overturned by the video assistant. It was pretty clear to me with the naked eye that Willian had been clipped by Timm Klose and the slowmotion replays confirmed it. We do not want technology to slow down games but when such a contentious incident occurs, the video assistant needs to take the time to reach the correct decision. If the video assistant was not shown the super slow-motion footage we saw on TV, what is the point of having the technology at all? Video technology works perfectly for black-and-white issues such as whether the ball has crossed the line, but it was always going to be a problem bringing in technology for subjective decisions such as penalties. Rather than clearing things up, video assistant referees have added another layer of confusion.