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The year is 2038 and full time has just been called for the FIFA World Cup final.
The world awaits for the result, holding its breath as the Mega Ref Turbo Computer analyses every foul, shot, pass and goal eventually signalling the outcome everyone expected.
Australia have been dominated by the new range of Footballtron 5000’s, the final score 70-0. As the young, fresh-faced Sepp Blatter clone hands over the trophy, two elderly man sigh with disappointment.
“Where you when the machines took over?”
“You mean VAR Day? I was there at Ground Zero watching Melbourne City vs Adelaide United.”
While this may be a sight exaggeration of what the influence the new Video Assistant Referee will have on our game, I was one of many who nervously watched last night’s game as the A-League was treated to the first top tier domestic football match in the world to use VAR and after seeing how little it affected the game I am slowly starting to warm to the stylishly named ‘Cave’.
After watching the NRL and having countless tries and decisions unnecessarily sent upstairs as well the repeated troubles they have had with their form of video ref system the Bunker, one could be forgiven for being against the VAR.
Thursday’s game between the Brisbane Broncos and the Sydney Roosters was the perfect example where the referee incorrectly ruled a forward pass, disallowing a try despite replays showing that wrong call had obviously been made.
Despite having the technology at their fingertips to check the ruling is that the Bunker cannot officiate on forward passes, instead reying on the referees call.
It seems that the FIFA and FFA has learned from the NRL’s mistakes and has only allowed the VAR to be used for four different categories and only when the wrong call has been made.
The four categories are: goals, penalties, straight red cards, and mistaken identity.
Having been brought up on the mentality that ‘you win some calls, you lose some calls’ and that it would only slow the game down I was apprehensive about the Cave, although after seeing that it will be only used when an obvious wrong call is made and only regarding the above instances my fears were slightly alleviated.
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Another excellent decision is that unlike the Bunker, the Cave is not open to interpretation regarding the rules of the game. A perfect example that has been used would be last week’s incident where Diego Castro appeared to have dived after minimal contact from Dylan McGowan’s challenge.
The Cave would not have changed the ruling on this as there was contact and it was technically a penalty although Castro’s theatrics certainly played a part. This ensures that all decisions are consistent and don’t rely on whoever happens to be in the Cave at the time which is another fear many of us may have had.
It seems the FFA have very carefully constructed a system that won’t slow down the speed of play and won’t ruin our game that we love.
While you could question the logic in introducing such a new system right near the pointy end of the season it may turn out that the Cave could actually save the Grand Final from being ruined by an incorrect call.
And let’s not forget that this is a trial run and is by no means the final product or a permanent fixture in football. Yes there will be errors and no doubt their will be some bugs that will have to be eradicated and not everyone will approve of it.
I am only just coming around myself.
But it seems that The Cave has been made with the intention to improve football as a sport and that can only be the correct choice.
So calm down football fans.
VAR day isn’t here.
Yet.
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