The officiating scandals of the 2002 World Cup must remind us why the advent of the video referee is a good thingWith that collective wit for which football fans are justly renowned, the Spurs contingent at the Etihad Stadium broke into song last weekend when Manchester City’s winning goal was ruled out in the last minute. “VAR, my lord, VAR,” they chanted, to the tune of Kumbaya, as the video assistant referee scrubbed out Gabriel Jesus’s dramatic clincher, adjudging Aymeric Laporte to have handled the ball with the most glancing of touches. It was a case of Jesus being thwarted by a higher authority.But if Spurs fans saw VAR as a kind of divine intervention, a deus ex machina worthy...
A trip to Stockley Park gives a valuable insight into the VAR process, and also showed me that referees are actually quite pleasant, normal people“What we have to do is find a way to help referees out.” This is Tony Pulis – then the manager of West Brom – speaking in 2015. “I would definitely call now for managers to have two calls each and every game, where there are 30 seconds and they can have a video link-up with people upstairs who can watch it on video. It will eradicate the major decisions referees are getting wrong that actually affect games of football. We have to work hard to do that in what is the greatest league in the...
Scotland and Nigeria have suffered from the strict enforcement at penalties which is doing the competition no favoursI can only imagine the emotions felt by the Scotland players when their dreams of qualification for the knockout rounds died on Wednesday night as Florencia Bonsegundo’s twice-taken penalty hit the back of the net, deep into stoppage time, and denied them victory over Argentina. For them, it must have been absolutely heartbreaking. Watching the drama unfold from a distance, I was feeling something quite different: fury.I don’t think I have ever been as incensed by a football rule in my life. I was a fan of VAR at last year’s World Cup: coming in at the right time, cleaning up refereeing errors...
Referees know they can make a mistake on a bad tackle when they see an incident in a flash and it’s a cop-out not to punish serious fouls on the basis of video evidenceWe all make mistakes. Even us football writers, as difficult as it may be to believe, have been known to drop the odd ricket over the years. I must confess, to my eternal shame, that in the mild panic of a last-minute, potentially deadline-busting goal during my early years of covering Manchester City I managed to type in the wrong name for the scorer, Gareth Taylor, and credit his heroics to, well, this is awkward ... myself instead.The readers of the newspaper I was working for at...
Juventus goalkeeper’s protest to Michael Oliver – which saw him sent off – may cause unpleasant repercussions for the embattled officials at the lowest levels of footballHeartfelt sympathy is extended to Gianluigi Buffon, of course, railing with much of Italy against the referee Michael Oliver’s last-minute penalty decision which wiped out Juventus’ marvellous three-goal Champions League second-leg comeback against Real Madrid. Oliver, remaining intently officious while the Juventus players circled him in disbelieving outrage, then met Buffon’s excessive protests with a red card, sending the great, giant goalkeeper off in the last match of his epic Champions League career.It would take a cold heart, maybe, not to support Buffon in his passionate reaction and forgive his outbursts afterwards against the...