WE CAN DO WITHOUT THIS TRIAL OF ERRORS

THE good news is that the video assistant referee is still in its trial stage. As far as VAR goes, that is where the good news ends. The system is not working. It is flawed at almost every level. If plans to use it at the World Cup go ahead, we won’t be coming home until August. A personal view is that football never needed VAR. I always maintained that goalline technology — which has worked flawlessly — was enough. Subjective decisions such as fouls should be left to the match officials. However, now we have VAR there is no turning back, so we must look at the adjustments that may make it work. The governing bodies must ask: How can it improve the sport?

Currently, its use on penalties and infringements is having the opposite effect. It is interrupting the flow, placing fear in the minds of referees and confusing those who really matter, people who have paid at the turnstile. It was always likely that replays would not prove conclusive on issues of contact, for example.

Slow motion can change the way things look. Natural contact between two athletes can appear much worse. An example at Wembley was the ridiculous decision to rule out Erik Lamela’s early ‘goal’ for a supposed infringement by Fernando Llorente that in the real world would not have been enough to knock over a toddler. So, where do we go from here? I would restrict VAR’s use to reviewing only the scoring of goals. This works well in other sports. When a goal is scored, by all means check for offside and any clear — note the use of that word — infringements, then get on with the game. That system has the potential to improve our sport. The rest we can do without.