VAR enjoys largely positive World Cup debut to confound football’s luddites Sean Ingle
As with previous innovations that met with a hostile reception and then general approval, use of the video referee will become part and parcel of the game
When the controversial new rule came in, the real football men could barely hide their contempt. “I don’t think it is going to enhance the game at all,” sneered a top Premier League manager. “Who brought this in? Not players, managers or coaches. We weren’t consulted – there will be more stoppages.” Another admitted he was “angry” it was “foisted on the game”. One leading striker went further, warning: “Fifa’s move is a virtual admission that they have no confidence in officials.”
What happened next was predictable: more outrage; TV cameras highlighting every mistake caused by the new law; ex-pros frothing and fulminating. But slowly and imperceptibly everyone – including George Graham, Howard Wilkinson and Lee Chapman (the managers and forward quoted above) – accepted the backpass rule, which came in before the 1992-93 season, and moved on.
I tell this story as a reminder that the feverish hysteria surrounding VAR is not unique. British football is suspicious of change. Remember the confusion when the current offside laws were implemented? The anguish about the game “going soft” when Fifa decided Claudio Gentile’s progeny could no longer rake, maim and tattoo opponents’ shins with impunity? And, come to think of it, the slow-shifting attitudes to women’s football? Truly football could teach Jacob Rees-Mogg a thing or two about reflexive conservatism.
And though history was officially made on Saturday when the referee Andrés Cunha used VAR to award France a penalty (the first in a World Cup match given on such referral), it was in effect trialled 12 years earlier when Zinedine Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final. That sending off remains the ultimate litmus test for VAR. If you believe Zidane deserved to go, even though the referee and his linesmen missed his indiscretion, then you philosophically accept the need for video evidence, regardless of your views on how it is currently being implemented. As Italy’s coach, Marcello Lippi, said in the Olympic Stadium at the time: “You will realise it was not Materazzi who got the attention of the referee. It was the fourth and fifth officials looking at the video at the edge of the pitch.”
Back then there was little disagreement about the decision, even though it was against Fifa’s rules. But judging by the opening days of this World Cup, there is a rump of luddites, nostalgics and former pros instinctively dismissive about whether VAR can ever truly work. As a result they have become dishonest brokers, holding it to an impossible standard so they can gleefully point out its flaws. But no one believes video evidence is a panacea or that it can settle every debate. Football has too many uncertainties and shades of grey for that. Instead, the bar for VAR should be much lower. If it can eliminate most outrageous miscarriages of injustice, help referees get big decisions right more often than their naked eye and do it in a reasonable time frame, it should be regarded as a success.
Deep down we all know referees need help. There are piles of research to suggest that officials are unconsciously biased to home teams. Meanwhile a Dutch study in 2000 showed assistant referees sometimes have to guess when making offside decisions because is not always possible to keep an eye on the release of the ball and the player the pass is intended for at the same time. If there are tools that can help, why not use them?
One former referee I spoke to was disappointed that Fifa “had rushed” VAR for the World Cup but he remained broadly in favour of it because he felt it would mean fewer errors and less abuse from players. Research from Italy also suggests that diving is down 23% after VAR, another obvious plus. Meanwhile the great worry about VAR – that it would lead to the game being stopped for minutes at a time – has not materialised.
Of course there have been mistakes. The decision not to award Argentina’s Christian Pavon a penalty against Iceland was particularly baffling. But VAR is getting it right more often than not. And for all the wailing on social media, the penalty awarded to Antoine Griezmann was a textbook example of how it should work – a clear error spotted, the referee alerted and the decision reversed after it became clear Griezmann was spiked.
Yet even those in favour of the new rule must watch for possible unintended consequences. Referees tend to be reluctant to award penalties as in a low-scoring sport they have a massive effect – of the first 53 fouls in the penalty area in Euro 2012, for instance, 52 were given against the attacking team – yet already we have had a glut of spot kicks at this World Cup.
Could this be the new norm, given every foul in the box is scrutinised far more closely than before? And could it fundamentally change the game too much? As things stand, it is not irrational to hope that, within a few years, video evidence will be embedded and accepted, like many of the other radical rule changes have been.
It is worth remembering that when the backpass rule came in, Leeds’ striker Lee Chapman feared it would “alter the balance of the football ecosystem” and predicted it “encouraged purveyors of the long-ball game.” David Lacey, the Guardian’s venerable football correspondent, was more optimistic and suggested it “may persuade more teams to play from the back”. History proved him right – eventually.
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