Video killed the ref’s status
WE’VE had the opportunity to see fleeting glimpses of the Video Assistant Referees system during recent games and tournaments. And to be honest, I’m yet to be totally convinced.
I was always an advocate that decisions should be made by the man in the middle. This is mainly because I believe the game of football – as opposed to sports like cricket, tennis and rugby – is a more continuous flowing game and I didn’t really see how it would work with stops and starts to reflect on decisions.
As the public demand for perfection continued to gain momentum and the pundits regularly wanted every decision they perceived as being incorrect being changed, it was inevitable that some form of technology would be added to the game.
Goalline technology was the perfect way to start, a point of fact not of opinion, as we have seen, it is an instant decision that causes no debate and in fact has proved the previous dependence of the naked eye was impossible to rely upon.
From 40 yards away, judging whether or not all of the ball was a couple of millimetres over the goal line was not as easy as the experts would have had us believe.
I used to rage at the ridiculous comments that “everyone in the ground could see that”.
We are now seeing assistance available for matters of opinion rather than absolute fact. On some occasions, it can be invaluable but there are so many grey areas that many would have a different view. Obviously you’d expect that of fans, but believe me, referees don’t always agree on viewings of the same incident.
One thing of paramount importance is the credibility of the match-day referee.
Players will be players and if the ref has pointed to the spot only to have his decision overturned by video review, every decision for the rest of the game will be accompanied with “Are you sure?”.
Perfection in match decisions may be on the horizon, but it does pose another question: who on Earth will the fans have to vent their fury at and what will we have to talk about post-match?
Football is exciting, explosive, controversial; it’s about mistakes and human error.
We have to be careful about what we wish for.