LONDON: The debate about VAR — video-assistant refereeing — in English football has moved on fast. It is only two-and-a-half weeks since it was first used but already innocence has been lost, already positions are entrenched, already this has been cast as a battle between progressives and dinosaurs.
But let us begin with the cause of the chaos, Chelsea’s penalty shoot-out win in an FA Cup third-round replay on Wednesday. The game was largely unremarkable until, early in extra-time, Willian was denied what almost certainly should have been a penalty and was booked for diving. VAR said there had not been a clear and obvious error at which Chelsea lost their heads, began diving at every opportunity to give the referee Graham Scott a chance to rectify his earlier omission and had two players sent off.
VAR had not merely corrected what was widely considered an error but also enraged Chelsea, as though their players found it harder to accept that a man watching the game on a screen in Uxbridge had made a mistake than the referee in the middle. It had, in other words, had the exact opposite outcome to that it was supposed to have.
The issue — and this is key — was that point about a clear and obvious error. Football is not like tennis or cricket the two sports that seem to use technology most successfully. A ball has bounced on a line or over a line: That is definitive and technology is more accurate than its human equivalent — which is why goalline technology works so smoothly in football. A batsman has hit a ball or he hasn’t hit a ball: It is definitive. Even the tracking that predicts whether a ball would have gone on to hit the stumps is processing definitive data to come up with an answer.
Football is not like that. There are clear instances — a player kicks another player; a player punches the ball off the line; a player pulls a shirt — when VAR may see something the on-field referee does not. It can clarify offsides as well, although whether it can ever be entirely accurate if the toe of a player on one side of the pitch is a millimeter ahead of the chest of a player on the other side is debatable — or indeed whether it’s even desirable we should assess that (how level is “level?")
But a huge number of decisions are judgment calls. How much pressure constitutes a push? How “intentional” was that handball? Was that lunge for the ball “reckless?" There are certain decisions that cannot be reconciled one way or the other. The game exists in a series of interlocking grey areas and so the number of “clear and obvious” errors is small, while even an assessment of what is “clear and obvious” is subjective.
That is not an argument against VAR. Refereeing is difficult. Mistakes are made. If technology can help referees then it should be used. Even more significant could be the impact VAR has on player behavior, if the sense they are being watched eventually makes them less inclined to cheat (at least initially, the introduction of fourth and fifth officials behind the goals led to an increase in goals from corners, probably because defenders, conscious of the additional scrutiny, were cautious about grappling with attackers).
But it is an argument against VAR as it now exists. Implementation in Italy, Germany, Australia and the US has been fraught with problems. Ideally new measures are trialled in lower leagues, but smaller clubs do not have the necessary technology and so the new system, with all its teething problems, is being played out in the full glare of high-profile games.
One bad week should not end the experiment, but it should perhaps lead to a rethink in terms of implementation. There has to be far greater clarity for those watching, far greater clarity on when and for what VAR is used. Perhaps a challenge system would work, but it has to be used in such a way that it cannot be used cynically to stop a counter-attack. But the fact is nobody has yet devised a satisfactory system. The objection to VAR remains what it has always been: Technology-aided officiating is fine in principle, but how do we actually use it?