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Melbourne Victory players protest to referee Strebe Delovski. AAP Image/Joe Castro
In a game where there are only few goals scored, I believe it’s important that every goal should be a correct one, without controversy. This article will be responding to some of the arguments against video referees.
1. Human errors are part of the attraction of the game and removing referee mistakes will cause football to lose some of its spectacle because the game will become less human.
Human errors are part of the attraction of the game. However, the human errors that makes compelling viewing is from the players and the coaches.
In my opinion, sport is about testing the ability of the competitors and it’s the actions of the players that create the spectacle. Referee mistakes cheapen the spectacle as we see an outcome that wasn’t due to the ability of the competitors.
Sport should not be used as a vehicle to test referee ability.
As much as I respect the difficulties of the referee’s job, I don’t watch the game to see how good the referee is. If the referee makes a really good decision, I don’t go “Wow, that’s a great decision. He’s my favourite referee, I’m going to watch every football match with that referee just to see him exhibit his brilliant decision making skills.”
This is because the referee is not part of the spectacle of the game. The game itself is enough of a spectacle without needing to “spice it up” with referee mistakes.
I see the role of the referee to be the same as the roles of administrators. They are essential to the running of the game, but they are not part of the spectacle.
We should expect them to do their job as good as possible. Let’s not forget that video referees are human as well.
2. Football is a reflection of life and society. Life isn’t fair and neither is football.
It’s true that life isn’t fair. However, it’s also true that in most just societies, there’s a drive by humanity to make life as fair as possible.
The desire of the football community to make the game as fair as possible by reducing referee mistakes is a reflection of societies’ aims to always improve itself and to become as fair as possible.
After all, even anti-technology people believe that diving, play acting and unsporting behaviour should be removed from the game to make the game more fair.
3. Football unlike other sports does not have a natural break in the game. Therefore, introducing video referees will slow down the game.
There is a natural break in the game that can be exploited. When a team scores a goal or when a team is awarded a penalty.
How long does it take for a team to celebrate a goal?
Surely the time it takes the team to celebrate a goal will give the video referee ample time to review the legality of the goal, especially since there’s only a few goals scored in every game.
Now, there may be some goals that enter the shade of gray territories. Where it could be argued either way whether the goal is fair or not, and will require multiple viewing of replay to get the correct decision.
This can be addressed by putting a time limit on the video referees, such as 30 – 60 seconds for them to make the decisions. Have the benefit of doubt go to the goal scorer like we supposedly do for offside decisions.
Fans are generally forgiving about shade of gray decisions. However, they are more likely to be enraged about clear cut mistakes from referees.
4. That the system may prevent illegitimate goals. However, what about penalties that should have been given to attacking sides that the referee misses?
Yep, this system is not going to solve that issue (at least without introducing stoppages to the game) and will not solve every type of referee mistakes.
However, the goal of video referees is to REDUCE mistakes, not remove it completely.
Just because the system isn’t perfect doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it.
5. Some countries don’t have the technology to implement video referees.
Then make the video referee an optional choice for the leagues’ to implement. Just because the American Samoa league can’t afford to implement video referees doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be implemented in major leagues and the World Cup.
6. The game should be adjudicated the same way at elite level then at park level.
Why? If a video referee will improve decision making at the elite levels, but leaves the park level unchanged, then that’s a net benefit.
The fact is that there’s already usage of technology to assist referees to make the right decisions. Video technology is just an additional equipment to assist the referees.
7. When does the passage of play begins? What would happen if a defender used his hand to win possession in his own half, his team then strung together 10 passes without the ball leaving the field of play before the ball is crossed in, and a goal is scored?
I think it’s fair game to review back to the incident where the attacking team won the possession that lead up to the goal. Of course ,the video referee shouldn’t have to watch everything from the beginning of the play every time a goal is scored.
But if the video referee remembered the infringement during the period of possession, then they should be able to overturn it from there.
Remember the goal is to reduce mistakes not remove them completely.
8. What happen if a defender makes a handball that should have resulted in a penalty but the referee missed it, which resulted in the attacking team scoring a goal that was offside?
Then the video referee should make it a penalty, then. The only reason why video referees shouldn’t be used in adjudicating penalty decisions that favoured the defensive side is due to the fact that it would bring stoppage to the play.
However, in scenarios where it wouldn’t cause a stoppage, like in this situation, then there’s nothing wrong with awarding a penalty.
If these double standards upset people, the alternative is to let the goal stand.
These series of tricky scenarios presented by anti-technology advocates are generally obscure and rare instances in the game.
There’s no doubt more scenarios that I haven’t covered may bring up tricky issues due to the usage of technology.
However, just because introduction of video referees may result in issues in some circumstances, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use the technology because it will be helpful in overwhelming majority of goals in the game.
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