VAR in Review

IFAB unanimously adopted VR today. The stories I’ve seen is light on details, but it seems like the VAR system is now allowed in any competition that wants it, but VAR is not incorporated into the Laws yet.

FIFA still needs to officially ratify, on March 16, use at the World Cup. But today’s decision, coupled with the IFAB’s insistence that we’ve seen nothing but positive results, is another big milestone.

 

Do we know what the wording clarification for DOGSO and SPA's was?

 

All I've seen--from the IFAB--is that the new wording was "confirmed." http://www.theifab.com/news/historic-step-for-greater-fairness-in-football

I love the title for this article. It's really quite laughable.

 

We knew the "statistics" that FIFA was putting out were a little propaganda-ish. Once we saw FIFA was all in, you knew today was going to happen.

 

Sort of. I never had any real hope that the other FAs would vote this down. So in that regard, I always knew today was going to happen. FIFA needs this at the World Cup now--in its opinion, at least.

But the IFAB being all-in on the propaganda angle is disappointing. I just can't imagine David Elleray looks at what's happened so far and is convinced that there have been nothing but positive results and that the introduction of the current iteration of VR is a historic step that ensures fairness. Both of those things are false. Yet Elleray's organization keeps saying such things, so maybe he's fully bought-in, too. It's disappointing. If the IFAB moved this forward and said "there have been mixed results, but this is still worth testing and perfecting," that would be both understandable and honest. Telling everyone this is working perfectly and improving the game just doesn't mesh with reality.

 

Mistaken identity would have covered it. It’s obviously not defined too rigidly, but mistaken identity covers anything like this—it’s not just giving the wrong person the wrong card.

Now, the bigger questions would be whether—in the heat of the moment—the VAR would have realized it AND Poll would have accepted the input over his notes. That’s open for debate. But, from a technical standpoint, nothing would have stopped the VAR from intervening.

I laugh more at his seeming certainty that he would have got the World Cup Final. It actually was possible, and maybe even likely. But nowhere near a certainty and he would have had to have had another clean match in the knockout stages.

 

Torn on this one from Australia. Useful to get a needed and understandably missed VC call, but 3 minutes is just way too long. This has to get better.

 

The elevated angle from the touchline that Geiger looked at was pretty telling. Attacker plays the ball (which Geiger probably saw live) and then the defender makes a clean tackle on the ball while avoiding significant contact.

Where it stands in the "clear and obvious" spectrum I don't know, but I think they got to the correct decision.

 

Poland, all from the same match:

Very confusing situation with lots of potential offside decisions and potential handballs. Goal gets disallowed for a handball by #16 (note the ball went in the net at 24:00 and play was restarted at 31:12--seriously): https://streamable.com/hqt1p

Challenge in the penalty area resulting in studs contact to the thigh of an opponent. No formal review and call of "no penalty" stands: https://streamable.com/64q1f

Penalty awarded for handling. After a VAR check, the decision is deemed not to be clearly and obviously wrong, so the penalty stands: https://streamable.com/6ht6u

Leaving aside the approximately 7-minute delay to disallow the first goal, I'd make two points:

1) First, I can easily argue that all three decisions were wrong on the merits. The first handling to disallow the goal is possible and it's a grey area, but I can argue it's not deliberate (though this is the decision I'm most okay with, of the three). I can definitely argue (and would insist) the second one is a penalty. And I could also easily argue that in the third one that player's arm is tucked to his body, he has little time to react, and the handling is not deliberate. So my first point would be that somehow, even with VAR, the referee team made three wrong decisions.

2) Second, leaving aside the merits of the decisions themselves, the application of VR and intervention of VARs show there is still so much lacking. The first handling, which was not called on the field, is somehow deemed a clear and obvious miss so the goal is annulled. But the clear studs to the thigh in the second incident, which results in an injury, doesn't even merit a review? Then you have the final situation where the referee obviously didn't see the handling (he's looking through the player's back) so either guessed or relied on his AR... yet he didn't have a second look himself, like he did in the first instance.

 

So you're saying that the standard to cancel a goal is different that awarding a goal/PK? We could make an entire book of these examples by now.

 

I mean it all goes back to errors of omission vs. errors of commission, which we've talked about for years on this site now.

Referees are much more scared of making a wrong call that negatively affects the outcome of the game than not making one that probably should have been made. When you classify awarding a "bad goal" as an error of commission (rather than not calling a foul in the lead-up to a goal as an "error of omission") it all makes sense. To think that this philosophy wouldn't translate into the VR system was, apparently, incredibly naive.

But when the parameters of the system were designed to specifically catch missed SFP, VC and penalties that objectively should have been sanctioned, that's a problem.

I think you could design a VR system that could work if you limit the parameters to situations where technology and an additional set of eyes were only there to correct obvious injustices or grave technical mistakes. It takes some work, but it's not that hard. This isn't it, though. This is making things worse.

 

Though previous news accounts would make you think this was official several times already (and, to be fair, it was made "unofficially official" at the last IFAB meeting), today was the vote that finally determined VAR will happen at the World Cup.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/43438344

The comments in support of this from Infantino are infuriating: "We need to live with the times." Yeah, so let's invent a bad system that makes things worse.

You can accept the need for technology (or simply accept it is a foregone conclusion) while simultaneously assessing that the current system is not designed well and not making the game better. Pretending like those are two mutually exclusive positions is what leads us to a position where no one in power seems to be casting a seriously critical eye. Of course, it's always easier to just attack the motives of opponents when you're in power, rather than to do the hard work of fixing things (or making a particularly tough decision, such as delaying implementation). It's just very disappointing that, with something this consequential to the sport, those in decision-making roles seem to incapable of believing their own eyes.