Keir Radnedge VAR
Sepp Blatter composed his most lugubrious expression, leaned forward meaningfully, gazed around the expectant quorum of reporters and admitted: “We are a laughing stock around the world.”
The phrase has been re-coined more recently about the erratic and belated arrival of VAR in the Premier League.
But Blatter was speaking as FIFA president a decade ago, the day after witnessing Frank Lampard’s infamous “phantom goal” against Germany at the 2010 World Cup.
There had been none of the “was-it-or-wasn’t-it?” guesswork which surrounds England’s third goal in the 1966 final against the same opposition; nor even the “did-I-seewhat-I-think-I-did?” over Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” audacity for Argentina in Mexico in 1986.
Everyone in the Bloemfontein sun had seen Lampard’s shot strike the underside of the crossbar and spin down behind the line. Everyone, that is, except referee Jorge Larrionda and his assistant.
It was to trigger a total change of heart for the head of FIFA.
Blatter’s reversal was momentous because it destroyed the concept of universality; that all football should be played within the same basic conditions, from World Cup to pub league.
Embracing technology drove an irrevocable chasm between the elite minority and the grassroots majority.
Within two years, goal-line technology had been developed and approved. But, as Michel Platini forecast: “With goal-line cameras we will be on a slippery slope; people will want even more technology.”
Of course, Blatter was correct to change his mind. But the pessimistic Platini was also correct: a mere eight years and two World Cups later, video assistant refereeing was imported at the 2018 World Cup.
VAR is often misunderstood. This is a different beast to goal-line technology, which is only about fact: the whole of the ball is either over the line or it is not. But VAR relies to a significant extent on subjective judgement. Not that there is any going back. Pandora’s box has been thrown open and all the little devils lurking around offside, handball, televisual lines and pitch-side screens have been cast into the worldwide game.
Surprisingly, considering the Premier League’s symbiotic relationship with TV and the alacrity with which it led the take-up of goal-line technology in 2013, it was caught off-balance by the VAR revolution.
IFAB – with the four British
FAs comprising half its members, remember – approved the start of worldwide VAR trials in 2017. Some 12 countries rushed in. But not England.
Such caution may have appeared wise as initial tales of confusion and complication erupted in Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Portugal.
These included a counter-attacking goal denied by an earlier VAR incident at the other end, mistaken identities, a team summoned from the dressing room at half-time after an overextended VAR review and a VAR boss in Germany sacked midway through the season as the price for his referees’ blunders.
English football dipped its toe in the waters in the 2017-18 FA Cup and did not like what it saw. Hence the Premier League waited until last season when it paid an exposed reputational penalty for having fallen behind the curve.
On the face of it, the margin for error should be minimal. Only four sectors of play are targeted: goal or no goal; penalty or no penalty; direct red card (not second yellow); and mistaken identity.
FIFA refereeing bosses Pierluigi Collina and Massimo Busacca have always insisted that VAR is only recourse for “clear and obvious” mistakes. But what is clear and obvious to the video referee is not clear and obvious to the live spectator.
Thus, chaos reigned over goals disallowed by the man in Stockley Park, who could zero in on a trailing finger or raised boot stud or armpit
Pandora’s box has been thrown open and all the little devils lurking around offside, handball, televisual lines and pitch-side screens have been cast into the worldwide game
all beyond the visual scope of the very match referee.
Officials sent out by Mike Riley, manager of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, were hampered by not only their own instructions but by the laws of the game themselves.
Concern about the time taken for a VAR decision saw them effectively barred from using the pitchside monitor. This meant the referee on the pitch was undermined by a colleague sitting often hundreds of miles away. That, in itself, is contrary to Law Five, which states:
“The decisions of the referee regarding facts connected with play, including whether or not a goal is scored and the result of the match, are final. The decisions of the referee, and all other match officials, must always be respected.”
Not delegated to a video referee. Certainly referees are ill-served by the absurdity of the current handball interpretation that varies between goal area and midfield. This is an example of the nonsense emerging from IFAB ever since it was saddled with advisory committees who seek to justify their own existence by needless meddling with the Laws of the Game.
No wonder FAs around the world struggle to find enough referees; no wonder confidence appeared, almost visibly, to be draining out of some Premier League officials as the extended season drew to its conclusion.
Hopefully, belatedly, lessons have been learned. It can only be good news that, now VAR is firmly established, its policing has been taken over by FIFA which possesses the authority to dictate uniformity of application.
Referees should demonstrate their authority by using the monitors while thicker analysis lines should reduce the tally of “armpit offsides”. Accidental handball will be penalised only if it results immediately in a goal, not back in the build-up, and goalkeepers must be monitored on stepping off the line at a penalty.
These amendments will not defuse all disputes. As Collina and Busacca have always insisted: “VAR is only a tool to reduce the number of mistakes not eradicate them entirely.”