THE TARTAN VARMY
Video ref has special place in our hearts now and Scot David was a pioneer in ’98
AS referee Szymon Marciniak turned away from the TV monitor and indicated Lyndon Dykes’ goal would stand, he was initiating the biggest conversion of hearts and minds since Billy Graham pitched up at Hampden in 1955.
Yet not even the celebrated American evangelist could have won over 50,000 suffering Scottish souls in the way VAR did on Saturday.
Sceptics and bitter critics were turned into disciples of a technology that now surely merits a rethink, from pubs to boardrooms in Scotland.
It adds substance to the serious consideration the Premiership has recently given to its introduction in the near future given that we do not even have basic goal line technology.
At that crucial juncture in the game I thought of the wee pioneer of the system, Scotsman David Will, who had bravely championed the use of this technology in the World Cup of 1998.
The then Scotland manager Craig Brown to this day feels the use of VAR would have gained Scotland at least a draw against Brazil in the opening match in Paris.
Will was head of FIFA’s refereeing committee during the World Cup in France 23 years ago.
In that capacity I watched him come into the vast conference centre of the Le Meridien hotel in Paris to chair a press conference, when the media were in a state of frenzy over the trend of harsh refereeing.
In the 36 first-round games, 15 red cards were to be issued, the same number as for the entire tournament in the USA four years earlier.
The French media, in particular, in keeping with what they thought was their national tradition for innovation, wanted to know why television was not being used to help referees.
Will was a conscientious solicitor from Brechin, of Presbyterian rectitude, in comparison with the man sitting beside him, Sepp Blatter. The newly elected president of FIFA was a smoothie who could have sold aftershave to the Taliban.
Will was sympathetic to the French view and his words carried a degree of encouragement to those of us of that inclination but Blatter took over and brushed Will aside.
He was a fundamentalist. The referee was the only authority. Football would be corrupted by such technology, an argument echoed even in recent times by VAR’s critics.
Blatter, whose previous attempts at creating order out of chaos made him president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, to protest women replacing such belts with pantyhose, was immovable. That was the beginning of Will’s disenchantment with his president and as he shared a coffee with me afterwards, simply and almost despairingly he said: “Television evidence will come, eventually.”
It was only a pipe dream for us Scots, lamenting at the incident in Paris when, in the opening game of the tournament, a John Collins free-kick was clearly handled by Brazilian midfielder Dunga in the box.
In the press conference afterwards Brown almost dolefully declared: “I’m told pictures back home show Dunga handling the ball.”
That people back home had to clarify the incident for Craig displays the absurdity of that age, amplified by what then occurred in a game that mattered so much in our group. American referee Esfandiar Bharmast in the BrazilNorway game awarded a penalty to the Norway in the last minute which everyone in the stadium thought was a blunder.
French TV coverage had not clarified the situation but the referee got a call from his wife to tell him that American television had an extra camera behind the goal showing Junior Baiano pulling Tore Andre Flo’s jersey in the box.
I recall the satisfaction which Will displayed using that fact to defend a ref who had been accused of the worst decision of all time.
It took 20 years, from then until the World Cup saw video refereeing of a sort come into being in Russia in 2018. That
caused the floodgates to open, and because of the global reach of television VAR has now become part of footballing lingo, even in VAR-free Scotland.
That’s even more the case because of Saturday night and it might yet prove that emotional highs can sometimes lead to rational thinking.
Its introduction would not totally eliminate human error in judgement.
Former Fulham manager Scott Parker, having seen his team’s goal disallowed in a 1-0 defeat by Spurs, probably put the case against VAR most eloquently. He said: “What we want to see as fans and spectators is goals, excitement, and I’m sorry to say that VAR is killing every bit of that. You’re losing the raw emotion of the game we absolutely love and it’s a shame.”
Even with VAR, all the arguments about that most contentious law of all have not ceased since it was established in 1883 – offside. Take the disallowed Chelsea goal by Timo Werner against Liverpool because his arm was marginally over the line in front of Andy Robertson. The case for its defence would probably be shunned by a QC but it is about implementation. Human judgement was never going to vanish completely and it is also generational. Younger people following football will gradually accept it as part of the culture. It is now like the wheel. You cannot now disinvent it and I have a feeling that after that tumultuous couple of minutes on Saturday night, any full-blooded Scot would welcome my suggestion an annual toast to VAR is established in conjunction with one to our venerated haggis.