World Cup: The ref’s rant shows VAR is broken – Here’s why
If the VAR believes there has been a potential clear error, he or she will contact the referee with that judgment.
The referee can then either (a) change the call on the advice of the VAR or (b) conduct an on-field review (OFR) by going to a designated spot on the sideline, called the referee review area (RRA), to review the video with the help of the review assistant (RA) or (c) decide that he/she is confident in the original call and not conduct an OFR.*
Here’s the problem with that: it’s SO open to interpretation, it will NEVER be consistently used.
The major phrase that concerns me is “a potential clear error.” It’s either clear, or it isn’t. Imagine you’re sat at one of those railway crossings in your car, and there are lights flashing on the sign that say, “potentially clear” – you would think someone was having a laugh!
If there’s the potential for a clear error, the referee themselves will know it.
That’s exactly how the Rugby League system works (and it works.) The referee themselves gives a decision, they then ask for VAR and say what they want to check for. A different referee then looks at the replay and tries to prove them wrong. If they can’t, the decision stands.
If you are putting the decision to go to a replay in the hands of someone else, then every decision the referee makes has a potential to be a clear error – that’s what potential means – because they can’t possibly know what judgement the referee has used.
2018 World Cup.
— Joey Barton (@Joey7Barton) March 27, 2018
Let give some poor referees from poor leagues. Let’s give them an alien technology. Get them to train a few weeks for it.
Then put them under the most intense pressure. What could possibly go wrong?#VAR
🙈
Looking at the alternative option, if VARs are going to interrupt without being asked for, it would be okay – if it was just ‘a clear error’, in the rules – then the referee won’t ever need to review footage. They’ll be told what has happened and asked if they saw it, and then they can either change their decision or uphold it, without ever having to stop the game.
But, as it is, instead of complaining about decisions being given or not given, we’ll just be complaining about why a referee or the VAR has or hasn’t chosen to review a decision. For a system designed to take ambiguity out of the game, it’s putting a heck of a lot in.