Video nasties as refs get a rough ride
PUNDITS MUST LOOK AGAIN
COME on you pundits and the public, give refs a chance.
It has been amazing how many have been queuing up to knock the new VAR system being trialled in televised cup matches in England.
That despite Mike Riley, the general manager of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, warning it would need up to 2,500 more games to get it right.
It worked perfectly on Tuesday when, after consulting with match official Jonathan Moss, video referee Mike Jones proved Kelechi Iheanacho was not offside when he scored his second goal for Leicester in their FA Cup replay with Fleetwood.
Error
All well and good, but just 24 hours later VAR is suddenly BAD when referee Graham Scott booked Chelsea star Willian for diving following a challenge from Norwich’s Tim Klose. It was a Klose call, if you’ll forgive the pun, but this time Jones, in a studio in west London, did not feel the need to tell the ref he had made a clear and obvious error, which, of course, he had. Cue an avalanche of flak for Jones and the VAR system, with Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer calling it “a shocking decision” and a “shambles”. Blimey, talk about being hasty. I would be interested to know how long Shearer took to work out how to programme his central heating system! The point is that VAR is aiming to make an imperfect way of ruling on games a bit less imperfect, by cutting down ref errors from four per cent to two per cent.
In Iheanacho’s case, it was shown, when it comes to checking replays for something like an offside, that it works perfectly. The overrule took 67 seconds.
But incidents like diving are nearly always totally subjective. Shearer himself will have been in the studio many times when he and a fellow pundit have disagreed on whether it was a dive, despite watching a replay over and over.
Does that mean their punditry was “shocking” and a “shambles”?
Also, the video refs are well aware they are under intense pressure not to hold up the game, with pundits, once again, ready to slate them for delays.
In short, they deserve the chance to work out some teething problems without abuse being showered on them.
The game at Leicester has already shown a wrong can be made right, so hold fire on getting VAR-y angry you pundits.