Thursday will play host of the 21st edition of the FIFA World Cup in Russia, but also the first to use VAR (Video Assistant Referee) technology. After a rough ride since its inception, FIFA’s sometimes blind ambition to pioneer this approach has led to numerous instances of error, confusion and delay that has widely split the footballing fraternity of how best to move forward. A year on from my initial questioning of this approach, I suggest that the early teething pains being felt are more likely to be long term symptoms of a technology that doesn’t quite fit the sport.
From the outset I’ve long been a critic of using video technology in football. Proposing that a categorical decision can be made on matters of opinion has always struck me as merely adding another layer of contention to an already heated arena. The subsequent delay and confusion would also in my opinion damage the essence of why football is so loved.
Off the back of a mixed pilot at the latter end of the 2016/17 Australian A-League season, I detailed a number of failings, highlighting further concerns that needed to be ironed out in the subsequent year ahead of the World Cup. The last 12 months however have done little to suggest this has been achieved.
The decisions up for consideration remain the same; 1) circumstances surrounding goals being scored, 2) penalty decisions, 3) red card incidents and 4) mistaken identity. While the initial pilots experienced quite significant failings in Australia and at the Club World Cup, the full season rollouts were introduced as agreed, in the German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, Portuguese Primeira Liga, sporadic English FA Cup ties and a full season with the A-League, alongside the FIFA competitions; Confederations Cup, U20 World Cup, Club World Cup and sporadic international friendlies. The testing ground was now vast, but with it came the inevitable hand-in-hand controversies.
The three areas of concern raised last year were the wide interpretation of the rules, the time delay in making the decisions and the behaviour on the pitch, which all had a significant part to play over the last 12 months. However, an additional concern can now be added to the list of snags; that being technological malfunction.
Interpretation
One of football’s enduring qualities has always been its freedom. There’s no steadfast way of playing the game and with it means there’s few laws that can be considered as categorical. While Goal Line Technology (GLT) has developed quickly into being a mainstay of modern football, VAR was always fighting an uphill battle as it considered multiple shades of grey over the unquestionable decision of whether a ball had crossed the goal line or not.
Last summer’s Confederations Cup, the official warm up for this year’s World Cup had a number of interpretation issues that caused upheaval. Chile were denied a VAR review upon a clear enough looking penalty decision against Portugal in the semi-finals, while they conversely were the beneficiaries in the final when Gonzalo Jara was spared a red card upon an on pitch review for an equally clear elbow on Germany’s Timo Werner.
Later that year, at December’s Club World Cup, Real Madrid who were affected by the VAR at the previous edition in 2016 were under scrutiny once again. On two occasions during their semi-final with Al-Jazira VAR stirred up confusion; first a goal for Casemiro was ruled out, overturned, then ruled out once more due to an open for interpretation offside decision against Karim Benzema which questioned whether he was interfering with play or not.
Secondly, Al-Jazira had a goal ruled out for offside, when Mbark Boussoufa was judged to be offside (after a significant delay), again a call that caused debate. After the match Real coach Zinedine Zidane and player Luke Modric spoke of their frustrations of the system, citing their confusion and the scope for interpretation as the technology’s limiting factors.
The issues that VAR highlights tend to become more defined when a supporter’s team is affected, highlighted perfectly by the England national team over the last 12 months. Firstly, Raphael Varane was sent off for France against England in Paris last summer for a soft but likely last man foul on Dele Alli, widely praised in the country as a clear example as to why video technology was first introduced.
Fast forward nine months and the shoe was on the other foot, as England conceded a soft penalty to Italy after VAR intervention. Both decisions were very similar; clumsy but contestable. Predictably however there was outcry on this occasion; as former national team striker Gary Linekar put it England had a “clear and obvious victory taken away” from them. He, like many pundits that night pointed to the rules that state an overturned decision needs to be “clear and obvious”, while in the same year the same group of observers didn’t bat an eye lid at the red card awarded to Varane.
Time Delay
There have been countless cases where VAR has worked perfectly, either as a sanity check to ensure the referee has made the correct call first time around or to pick up something that was initially missed. However, in plenty of cases this process has been lengthy and often misleading for fans in the ground and broadcasters/viewers around the globe watching on TV.
The most famous example occurred in Germany in April, when a relegation “six pointer” between Mainz and Freiberg descended into farce, as players were brought back out of their half time break to conduct a penalty for an incident that happened a good five minutes ago in the first half. Alongside the impeding logistics of recalling players out of the tunnel (some of whom didn’t even reappear for the penalty to be taken), fans who had made their way downstairs in the ground and TV broadcasts on ad breaks would have critically missed a key part of the action.
Concerning in-play decisions, some calls are also demonstrably time consuming to resolve. Central Coast Mariners midfielder Wout Brama’s eventual red card in the A-League took a whole two minutes, from initial yellow to its eventual upgrading. A short period of time on paper, but as can be attested on video footage a lengthy period that raised tensions on the home bench, particularly with coach Paul Okon.
Behaviour on the pitch
FIFA have taken preemptive action on the behaviour of players calling for a VAR check, insisting any call for such would be punishable by a yellow card. Given the lack of success FIFA and national leagues have had in clamping down on dissent towards referees from all quarters, it’s debatable this extra legislation will have any effect, but at the very least FIFA are accepting changes in behaviour have occurred since VAR’s implementation.
Players and coaches objection to initial decisions and the follow up reversions will be pointed to as passion, part and parcel of the game, but the question clearly is to why bother in introducing a system that exacerbates the debate rather than resolves it? The long term future will pile more pressure on the referees instead of the technology being there to support them, leading to occasions where referees are clearly changing the way they officiate.
In Australia, it has been regularly debated whether officials are often overlooking decisions, as they’ll be picked up by VAR anyway, to ensure a chance isn’t lost in real time play. The opposite happened in last summer’s U20 World Cup final between England and Venezuela. Venezuelan forward Adalberto Penaranda went down in the box under the challenge of Kyle Walker-Peters, which was quickly blown up by the referee as being a penalty.
Upon immediate questioning the referee rushed the decision up to the VAR box, seemingly suggesting, “I couldn’t be sure, but it’s getting checked over,” bringing the updated VAR processes into doubt, as referees are negating their initial job of making the decision on the pitch as they see it.
While the decision was agreed upon, or at least not seen as a “clear and obvious” mistake by the referee, even though from a personal standpoint there looked to be minimal to no contact, the resulting penalty was missed by Venezuela, muting any hard feelings from the England bench. A bullet dodged for the referee and FIFA, but questioning should be directed on the consistency in the use of the technology between individual referees.
Technology Malfunction
One aspect I hadn’t considered this time last year, was that the technology wasn’t fit for purpose in the required moment. The comical graphics used by the VAR team behind the FA Cup tie between Huddersfield Town and Manchester United went viral, as Juan Mata was called offside for United, justified by an uneven yellow line across the field. Hawk-Eye, the operators behind the technology put it down to a glitch in the system.
This year’s A-League Grand Final went one step further and saw its VAR system switch off for two minutes. While this could’ve happened another time to little effect, the period in question saw Melbourne Victory score the only goal of the game, despite the television audience being fully aware that James Donachie was offside in the build-up. The outcry was tremendous, but crucially for FIFA isolated in a low key league outside of Europe, but a comparison to a winning goal in the World Cup final would be disastrous. Despite a lengthy explanation citing a technical failure, the FFA have agreed to use VAR in next season’s A-League campaign.
Ironically after the affair, there were calls for the VAR referee in question to be banned from ever taking up the role again, irrespective of his lack of technological expertise. This surely culminates the VAR’s ludicrous moral 360, from introducing technology to take the pressure off referees, we are now calling into question the careers of those using it.
Quite possibly the most bizarre example however, came in Portugal, when a clear offside goal scored by Aves v Boavista in the Portuguese Primeira Liga was missed by the VAR cameras as a supporter’s flag was flown in the way of its sight. Clearly the most surreal incident in VAR’s short history, it’d likely raise a few smirks even from the Boavista fans, if we weren’t used to so many damning clangers in the past.
Throughout all this, FIFA carries on regardless to push their opinion that VAR has been of benefit to those who have introduced it into their competitions. An IFAB report from January suggested decision making has improved, from 93 to 98.9% success rate, yet still the biggest players in club football continue to be unimpressed.
In February, UEFA confirmed that they weren’t going to use VAR in their upcoming Champions League campaign, while the English Premier League followed suit in April stating; “The decision came after comprehensive discussions regarding the progress made in VAR trials in English football and key learnings from the many competitions elsewhere using it.”
It’s probably a wise decision for both organisations to take, given they haven’t yet experienced the crisis moments that FIFA had, back in 2010, where a few clear decisions were missed in South Africa’s staging of the World Cup. But even for those who were initial pushers of VAR, regular use has seen their opinion change.
As we edge towards the biggest football competition in the last four years, the previews have quite sensibly been looking at the players and teams that will hopefully make the headlines come the World Cup final. While I may speak as an unwavering sceptic of VAR, I can’t foresee a scenario where at least one team won’t be negatively impacted by the use of the system however. While question marks and technical bugs continue to hover over it, VAR will always be lurking ready to tarnish the greatest show on earth.
