I fear video refs may slow the game down too much

IT has been the week of Video Assistant Referees and despite the teething problems, such as the long wait to confirm the non-award of a penalty during the Chelsea-Arsenal semifinal, I am positive about the development. The more decisions referees get right, the better.

My one reservation is that the use of TV replays means we may be heading ever closer to a non-contact sport. We have got to the stage where even the slightest touch now means a player goes down and it is almost always a penalty. That’s not how I understand the rules.

I know that people will point the finger at me — especially Mauricio Pochettino! I’m not claiming never to have done it. Back in 2002 Mauricio made contact, I fell and England won the penalty that beat Argentina!

But just because I did it doesn’t mean that every time I went down, I expected the referee to give a penalty.

VAR increases the trend of football becoming a slowmotion sport rather than a real-time sport. In slow motion, constantly repeated, contact can look worse and free-kicks are given unnecessarily. In my view Eden Hazard, against Arsenal in the Premier League, and Adam Lallana, against Everton in the FA Cup, should not have had penalties, so I’m looking forward to VAR improving refereeing.

But I hope it doesn’t mean every touch is now a foul or else we will have lost some of the essence of the game.