We’ve reached the 91st minute at the Etihad Stadium. The ball falls to the feet of Manchester City forward Gabriel Jesus who, with one neat first touch and shimmy, perfectly caresses the ball down low to the left of Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
The familiar raucous celebrations of the home side begin. The Brazilian striker has just scored a stoppage-time winner to claim all three points. Only he hasn’t. Flashbacks of last season’s infamous Champions League quarter-final ensue.
Even the most ardent of Manchester City’s rivals have to feel a twinge of sympathy for them. The most innocuous of handballs by Aymeric Laporte has ruled out a goal that could prove pivotal come the end of the season – only one point separated the two juggernauts of Manchester City and Liverpool at the end of the last campaign.
With the crowd now deflated, many are pondering just how beneficial VAR will be to the beautiful game.
Will it strip the game of excitement? Is there now any reason to celebrate a goal before the invisible adjudicators many miles away scrutinise the build-up with alacrity, desperately trying to find the slightest misdemeanour that justifies disallowing the goal?
Perhaps we all mistakenly thought the grass was greener – just ask Sergio Aguero and Pep Guardiola, whose premature embrace of raw emotion and joy ended on a sour note.
On the other hand, football is now a commodity. Given the influx of money in the sport, surely it is only right that we attempt to achieve maximum fairness in every decision, regardless of the impact on the excitement of the game?
After all, it is often only the slightest of margins that separate winning from losing, and the ever-growing global commercialisation of football means that winning is now big money. Imagine having to face the perils of relegation – both on a financial and personal level – on the back of a clear and obvious error that could have been detected by VAR.
Gabriel Jesus’ winner for Manchester City over Tottenham was taken off him by VAR. (Oli Scarff / AFP)
These contrasting arguments are very legitimate concerns, but the good news is that a compromise can be reached. We need only to look towards how video technology is used in two other sports: tennis and cricket.
Both sports adopt a form of video review – Hawk-Eye and the Decision Review System, respectively – to ensure that most mistakes by the umpires are rectified.
However, a crucial distinction between these systems and football’s VAR remains: in the former, each participant or team is limited to the amount of times they can resort to this issue.
This is a feature the stakeholders in football need to consider implementing if they are to maintain a balance between maintaining the fundamental excitement of the sport and reaching an equitable outcome.
Say each team has one challenge to the VAR per match. The final decision could lie with either the team’s captain or the manager, with obvious input from the players close to the alleged incident.
This would ensure the fairness of the game in the high-money stakes of elite level professional football – imagine the vitriol of abuse from the fans and the look of scorn from their team-mates when a player who clearly dived encouraged his team to use a precious review on such a blatant act of simulation. Diving and other forms of cheating would still be largely deterred.
Importantly, the use of VAR would not necessarily be limited to the scoring of a goal, the awarding of a penalty, a straight red card, or cases of mistaken identity. Teams would have discretion to use their one review on any decision they see fit, whether that be a second yellow card, or a dubious free kick awarded to a team with a renowned free kick taker.
There might be drawbacks. What about those situations where a team has no idea that there was a foul that lead to a goal or another crucial moment in the game?
The lack of an appeal from Spurs defenders towards Jesus’ last-minute winner suggests that even they weren’t aware of the slight handball in the build-up to the goal.
In such a scenario, however, it might be pondered whether such decisions should perhaps be left on the field of play. If a touch is that slight, or contact that minimal, it seems reasonable to let these decisions stand.
Finally, and on a related point, it seems unavoidable that this suggestion will not provide a panacea to every injustice in the world of football.
There will be some instances where a team has used their solitary review, and a blatant mistake is made by the on-field official.
But these are likely to be very rare scenarios. And it is certainly a price worth paying to keep the flame of instantaneous passion lingering both in the stadium and in front of our TV screens.
Alexander Lowe
Roar Rookie
Fans complain about not having VAR. The Premier League finally implements VAR, no one is happy with the system. Literally cannot win. Although the disallowed Jesus goal was most certainly a goal. No dispute there.
Voice of Reason
Roar Rookie
Spurs fan here - I think VAR is wonderful! Nah, seriously, the way it has been implemented is not good. Comparing to tennis and cricket doesn’t work either, sorry James. Now, technically you nearly always get the “correct” decision with VAR, as we did on the weekend. The bigger problem is the handball rule. In the spirit of the game, what happened is not handball. Unintentional, incidental. How on earth can it be handball for an attacker and not for a defender anyway? So the jokers at the FIFA Rules Committee have a lot to answer for. Back to VAR. IMO, you just want to eliminate blatant errors. So the answer is: 1. Goal line technology to the referee’s watch and 2. An expert watcher, ideally another referee, with access to TV footage who looks at the incident and has 30 seconds to press a button that goes to the same watch saying “handball” “offside” or whatever because he/she has decided “beyond reasonable doubt” that the referee has missed something.
Johnno
Guest
Absolutely spot on mate.
Onside
Guest
Agree with extra linesmen (linespersons ?), or one at least permanently behind goals. It would also certainly minimise shirt tugging and sneaky holding. Regarding VAR, I would like to see the three officials adjudicate, the ref and both linesmen, 2 out of 3, rather than just the main referee.
RbbAnonymous
Guest
I had no problem with football before VAR. Some fans did and others didn't. Regardless of a decision being factual or not to me is irrelevant, it was still made with authority by the man in the middle and his assistants. If he requires more assistance then I have no problem with that, as long as its not VAR. In terms of players cheating then they also need to think long and hard. Now someone like Thierry Henry wouldn't give a stuff on my views but my estimation of him as a footballer and a human went down a notch when he decide to cheat to go to the world cup. He is no longer known as just an amazing footballer, but an amazing footballer that cheated to go to the world cup. He probably can't go to Ireland without being reminded of that every day either. Ok he went to the world cup and that deliberate handball is something that probably no player would own up to, so its a little unfair to give Henry such grief but say that to the Irish. Life isn't fair and while Henry and France enjoyed their passage to the world cup there was still a price to pay and he is still paying it rightly or wrongly.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
I can live with the errors made in the course of 9- minutes but apparently many people can’t and clubs complain and television pundits watch replays over and over until they are “sure” Maybe television rights would be better if they were sold as once only broadcasts - no replays allowed until a set time after the game. That way we all watch and draw our own conclusions and nobody talks crap at half time with their over analysing of the game. I don’t go in for the half time or full time analysis but I assume it is popular? As fans we need to stop castigating officials. They make errors along with everyone else, especially commentators and pundits. Their errors don’t cost games and they don’t kill people either. My wife works in the health industry where making errors is critical and life threatening but this is just how we amuse ourselves in our spare time and please don’t quote Bill Shankly to me - the matter of life and death quote is over used and mainly taken right out of context. I’d be happy to get rid of it and invest in goal line technology. My under 12 side were dudded out of four goals this season through lack of technology!
Nemesis
Guest
But, the whole issue was created because in our game goals are hard to get. One incident can change a match. Can change the name on a trophy. 93% correct decisions are great. But, factual errors can be eliminated. Lampard's goal against Germany at WC2010 is a factual error that only video can eliminate. The ref & linesman didn't intentionally try to prevent England scoring. The ball is moving at such speed, they missed it. Same with Henry's handball. How can the ref see that from his position? Impossible. Linesman is even worse positioned. One other option besides VAR is to have 2 line officials on each side of the pitch. And, another 2 officials behind each goal. Just to provide facts. No interpretation. Just facts.
RbbAnonymous
Roar Rookie
How to fix VAR - You get rid of it. My view on the referee is this. A good referee will referee a match as honestly as possible with every INTENT on making the correct decision. They are in charge of the match and have that authority. This means that even if a player is offside when a goal is given it is still the CORRECT decision. You play to the referees whistle. Believe it or not but before VAR the referees were getting most of the decisions correct, to the tune of 93-95%. Those decisions that they do get incorrect are usually very marginal, its usually a split second in it. With the VAR in place some decisions you are looking at frame by frame footage wondering if someones big toe is offside at the point of contact. This isn't football. Its beyond a joke and it is RUINING the beautiful game.
At work
Roar Rookie
Scrap it = solved. #VAROut Goal line decisions should be the only video intervention.
Nemesis
Guest
As soon as anyone starts suggesting: we only need to look at other sports to learn about using videos to assist officiating, I realise the writer is talking nonsense. First, as far as I know, tennis only has objective rules for determining points. There is no human interpretation. Second, tennis would be the worst possible sport to use as the beacon for match officiating. Every tennis match seems to be mired in controversy about poor line calls & poor central umpires. Not just recently. For the past 50 years. I don't know much about cricket, but again most of the cricket laws seem to be objective. Yes, or no, decisions. Very little human interpretation. And, again, all I see on social media is whining & complaining about the cricket umpiring. We either need to get rid of VAR, or clearly define the way it is used. We do not need to come up with nonsensical "2 challenges" or "50 challenges". What a ridiculous system that would be. The reason we need video is because humans find it hard to see everything. So, what a silly idea to rely on players challenging an incident. You can't challenge something you didn't see.
Fadida
Roar Rookie
It's still humans making subjective decisions on rules that aren't black and white. What could go wrong? It's funny reading the huge outcry on UK sites like Football365, the biggest issue being the effect on the spontaneous goal celebration. Australian fans could have given them a heads up; first you run through your head 1)is the flag up? 2) did anyone look remotely close to offside that the assistant didn't see? 3) was there a physical challenge in the lead up that might be reviewed? 4) had any opponent gone to ground in the build-up? After answering these questions safely you can start a cautious celebration. F$%k it! Number 5! It's handball, 15 seconds back in the move! And 3 minutes of replays later.
Griffo
Roar Guru
For me the idea of a tech component to a decision aid to the ref is still valid, it’s just the VAR implementation itself that is flawed. More cameras and better angles may help but it is the nature of the booth setup and the human element especially that needs changing and even replacing. Goal line tech is more like it - not so much the yes/no of the ball crossing the line part, but the machine nature of precision of the decision and the quick response. They should be working on a VAR2 that involves faster machine decision-making with greater data input. It’s the time to make decisions on the closer calls that’s killing it, not the (usually) correct decisions that result from VAR.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
A slight handball? I had no idea that there are degrees of handball! The difference between cricket and tennis when looking at how they use replay is that there are very natural breaks in play that allow review to fit in between serves or the bowler walking back to his/her run up point. Football doesn’t lend itself to breaks in play whilst someone somewhere reviews everything leading up to an incident and I don’t believe the game lends itself to team appeals either. Tennis is easy in the sense that a player can appeal against a line call although imo it lacks integrity as once a player has used up the number of appeals, there could be a whole raft of controversial calls made that cannot be reviewed due to the restriction. Cricket is similar. It limits the amount of fair play and justice a team or individual is entitled to. It seems to me that football authorities, players and pundits around the globe sought a way of improving the decision making during 90 minutes and saw VAR as a panacea without looking thoroughly at the side effects much in the same way the medical profession develops various treatments. The treatment is in the best interests of the patient so just deal with the side effects.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Yeah, welcome to the same debate the A-League has been having for two years. We’ve had similar article after article like this for the last two seasons - there’s nothing new here, only the club names have changed.