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Way before Christmas and perhaps even since, two phrases have been bandied about and widely used, yet they are not in the official Oxford English Dictionary – or any other dictionary for that matter. These are Brexit and the video assistant referee (VAR) system.
Today, they are spoken often, and most people know their meaning and what they stand for.
But, for the purpose of this column, I will concentrate on the latter as it affects football lovers around the world.
The VAR system was supposed to be the solution to all, or most, of the ills that have plagued the beautiful game for a long time.
Things such as the offside and handball rules. The biggest controversy appears to be around the offside rule.
Originally, and in simple terms, if an attacker was level with the second-last defender, he was deemed to be offside. Then the powers that be decided that teams were becoming too defensive, so they changed it.
Hence, if an attacker is level with the second-last defender, they will now be onside.
They then qualified that change even further to state that if there was any doubt, the benefit of the doubt went to the attacking player.
Great. But then teams started complaining about the offside and handball rules.
So a new gadget was invented to try to bring clarity to these controversies. The VAR was born.
It was first introduced in top-flight European football by the Bundesliga in Germany and the Serie A in Italy at the beginning of the 2017/18 season. La Liga in Spain introduced it in the 2018/19 season.
It was also used at the 2017 Fifa Under-20 World Cup.
It seems to work well in other countries, but not in England. Remember, the head of the International Football Association Board is a former Premier League referee. David Elleray and his committee sanction changes to the laws of the game, and it was at their annual conference in 2016 that the VAR was first discussed and authorised.
One wonders, then, why it appears that England is having a problem with it. This is what I think is the reason for the resistance:
Firstly, I am in favour of the VAR because, when used properly, it can bring clarity – nay, certainty – to actions that the human eye did not detect. Referees and their assistants are only human, and humans make mistakes. Secondly, I also feel the general public – the spectators and supporters – are in favour of the VAR. This is because, when used properly, it allows justice to be done and be seen to be done, and sometimes that justice rests on millimetres.
My main problem with the system in the Premier League, which, by the way, is supposed to be the best league in the world – according to the Premier League – is that it takes too long for match officials to make a decision.
I also think the referees are too scared to make a decision in case the slow motion cameras and the so-called experts in the studio, who have the benefit of TV replays from 10 or 20 different angles, will show up their mistakes, if any.
A quick solution would be to get the referee to immediately go to the monitor at the side of the pitch and, together with the VAR officials wherever they are perched, make a decision. That would surely cut the decision-making time by half.
Will the Premier League do that? Not a chance. This is because it didn’t think of the VAR and it will never allow itself to be outshone by mere mortals.
There’s an interesting angle on the offside rule, which I’ll write about in the weeks ahead.
Happy whistling!
Follow me on Twitter @dr_errol
