VAR has set us back 60 years
A young Jimmy Greaves once made the observation that football was getting more complicated. That was back in the 1960s and he was commenting, unfavourably, on the licensed coaches who were bringing a new and highly technical approach to the English game.
The quote survives in different forms, of which my favourite version goes like this: “The way those guys talk, you’d think scoring a goal is more difficult than splitting the atom.”
Now, here we are in 2020, and VAR has plunged us back 60 years, back into the impossibly complicated world of atomic physics – which is a world where football does not belong.
There can be no arguing against the birth of VAR. Technology, advancing by leaps and bounds, gave us TV replays, then iPads and mobile phones, until any refereeing error was immediately exposed to the whole world. Except, of course, to the one man who really mattered: the referee himself.
So technology gave us VAR with the admirable intention of clearing up that mess, of allowing a quick video-review and, if necessary, a reversal of the referee’s call. So far, so good.
Even better was the vital caution that FIFA added to its VAR Protocol: that VAR should be used only to correct “clear and obvious” errors and “serious missed” incidents. That caveat was vital to make sure VAR was not repeatedly brought into action to review all manner of referee calls.
But a major problem has developed. Throughout their 150-year life, football’s rules have maintained a staunchly pro-defence attitude. Scoring goals has been made difficult, as it should be, but now absurdly so. We all know that to score a goal all of the ball must pass over all of the goal line. No half measures here. In disputed calls, the odds are heavily in favour of a “no goal” decision.
VAR can now be called on for supporting evidence. Which ought to mean a clear, objective, unbiased call. Forget it. The rules are weighted against a pro-goal decision. And that weight increases when an already prodefence video ref makes his judgment.
The problem becomes serious because that caveat about “serious and obvious errors” is completely ignored if a goal has been scored. That is a special case and VAR is allowed to look at the build-up – looking, obviously, for one thing only: a reason to cancel the goal. It may be a minimal handball or a slight push, but the most frequently found offence is offside.
Usually these offside calls are
blatantly absurd, as slight as the merest projection of a toenail or a kneecap; calls that no human eye can detect, meaning that they cannot be “clear and obvious” referee errors. Yet these subliminal calls are repeatedly accepted as strong enough reasons for ruling out goals.
These decisions fly in the face of VAR Protocol, which states the ref’s original decision “will not be changed” unless VAR proves a “clear and obvious” error.
There is another reason to be suspicious of these VAR offside calls. At the other end of an offside call is the team-mate providing the assist. The exact instant at which the ball is passed must be recorded. That moment has then to be co-ordinated with the exact positions of toenails and kneecaps. No wonder VAR decisions entail delays.
The nonsense surrounding these millimetric offside decisions can be quite easily banished by insisting that any call
Here we are in 2020, and VAR has plunged us back 60 years
must involve a measurement that can be detected by the human eye. If there is genuine uncertainty there can be no clear and obvious error. The original referee human-eye call must stand.
The argument against everything I have just laid out is that VAR is impartial, therefore its decisions will strike a fair balance between goal and no-goal decisions. But that doesn’t happen. The “no goal” sign is the one we keep seeing, with quite likely a well-worked goal ruled out by an errant toenail.
One feels an impulse to get as precise and picky as the VAR and point out that it is the tip of the player’s boot that is offside, whereas the rules specify “feet”...
Ultimately, what ensures that VAR will be a negative, anti-goal system is that it operates within the long-standing referee culture that is always looking to resolve doubtful plays in favour of defenders.
That bias may not be easy to get rid of, but it will have to go if VAR is to prove a reliable aid to refereeing.