The Virtual/Video Assistant Referee (VAR) was first conceived during the Netherlands’s Referee 2.0 project in the early 2010s. It was sold to people’s consciousness to be a clear improvement to football officiating. VAR was first introduced in an international friendly between France and Italy in June 2016. And it was first used in a professional competitive match at the 2017 FIFA’s Confederations Cup. As good as the intentions were, VAR as brought nothing but more controversy and difficulty to football referring and the following are my reason;
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VAR DECISIONS ARE TIME WASTING; For a referee to go down to the side of the field and keep staring at the replay or waiting for VAR official to communicate to him while wasting away minutes and importantly the official 90 minutes of the game of football.
Although, VAR proponents will argue that wasted minutes are added on after the official 90 minutes. But we all know that weaker teams tend to suffer the more after withstanding much pressure from stronger teams throughout the normal official 90 minutes and the human body is known to make mistakes especially having prepaid for 90 minutes. Secondly, most times these additional minutes, plenty as they have become end up so boring because of the tired legs on the field of play. Players tend to sit back protect their advantage over other team thereby boring both the players and the spectators.
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KILLS MOMENTUM; momentum they say is like a plant in a desert, you keep watering, it grows but if you stop watering it dies. In the case of the game of football, when a team keeps attacking her opponent for several minutes to the extent of getting a goal and even celebrated such a goal. Now fast forward to 3 or more minutes down the line such a goal is cancelled after waiting minutes without play. Such a team is psychologically down; I’ll say it’s like conceding a goal while the opponent is psychologically boasted because they just enjoyed an advantage.
Furthermore, not only are the players on the field affected, the spectators and fans are also psychologically not motivated, such time delaying decision throw them confused and dejected, some are unable to overcome it eventually affecting the way they jeer up their team.
VAR DECISIONS ARE NOT PERFECT; it is believed that VAR was introduced to be an upgrade to Football officiating, to be a third eye for the referee on the pitch. But looking at events since its introduction, VAR decisions are even more controversial than when it was just the referee having the final say. Calls are not consistent, whereby an offence for a particular event is called and just some minutes later that same offence is looked away in the same football match not to talk of another match.
So I say if referee decisions generate controversies and the upgrade to the referee even generates greater controversies, then why was it introduced in the first instance.
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EXCLUSION OF THE CENTER REFEREE FROM DECISION MAKING; When the VAR technology was newly introduced, we saw the centre referees going to the touch line to watch the replay of an event and take decision based on what the referee thinks happened having seen the replay from different camera angle.
But recently that method is gradually fading out especially in the English Premier League. Now the referee just stays on the pitch, wait for decisions to be communicated to him by officials in the VAR room which I think is wrong and clarity cannot be achieved in that manner.
The intention of the fathers of our great game (Football) was for the center referee to run on the field of play with the players so as to feel exactly what the players feel. He knows the exact pain the body goes through in these 90 difficult minutes, he feels the same passion and he knows and sees the player’s intentions even before he or she touches the ball. The referee also get injured as the players do, so these put the referee as the best judge to make final decisions on the field of play.
A VAR official sitting in the comfort of a VAR room might see the ball touch a player hand and immediately decides an infringement, while a center referee will be able to discern if it was intentional or not. That is what is called judgement. It will be funny to recall the extreme rise in the penalty decisions in football matches than it was before now. If these odds continue in the beautiful game of football, I’m afraid championship top scorers will be scoring 20 or more goals with 10 out of these coming from the spot.
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COMMENTATORS ARE WORRIED; as a little kid, watching football matches on the Television was rear for me so the radio was a solace for kids of my generation. I grew up to love radio commentators put on so much energy and enthusiast in their reporting, particularly when an athlete is about to cross the finish line of a race, a football player takes a shot, not to mention when there is a goal. Commentators both on radio and TV knows the law of the game, so they sometimes report what decision the referee will take even before the referee does. Commentators can tell you the team getting a (free kick, a throw in, goal kick, corner kick, penalty, an offside decision etc.) even before the referee does, to the extent of reporting how many minutes will be added after the 90 minutes and each report will be spot on.
But VAR as reduced commentary to what I call “Be careful reportage”. Because nobody wants to be made a fool, what we see and hear in commentaries are people who are extremely careful when doing their job, the free flowing and enthusiast is fading out. Shot are been played on target at a goal and commentators are not exaggerating or shouting on top of their voice as before, knowing that VAR may call up an infringement somewhere. Goals commentaries are waited for like 3 to 4 minutes before the commentators announces it. Commentators bring vibe, they are the polish to a football match but thanks to VAR it’s getting boring.
VAR apologist may see my write up as a pessimist view, some even say it is here to stay, so why bother talking about it. You may celebrate VAR, but you will always have a reason to wait for a review on VAR before you can celebrate that special goal from your favorite player. Think about it.
Chect out more about my objection to VAR by clicking on this link
https://m.hub.opera.com/system/preview?aid=9dcea3f202e94b338a86f758f3c5e7a3