Last week, after
some particularly appalling examples of the use and misuse of the Video
Assistant Referee (VAR) system in a weekend of Premier League football matches
I questioned whether the technology which was introduced to make the game more
fair was, in fact, spoiling it for players and spectators alike (see Be Careful
What You Wish For: Is Video Technology Ruining Sport?, https://www.sdwriting.org/p/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-is-video.html).
The latest
round of Premier League games has not only done more to suggest that the answer
to that question is ‘Yes’, it has also highlighted that the inconsistencies in
refereeing which were another reason why many called for the introduction of
technology are still very much with us. And as VAR continues to overrule the
referee on the pitch, this will only get worse. This in itself is ridiculous.
It clearly states in the Rules of the Game that ‘the referee’s decision is
final’, meaning the decision of the referee on the pitch, not the one sitting
in a video studio in Stockley Park, a couple of miles north of Heathrow.
(Indeed, one
begins to wonder whether the location of the Video Assistant Referee is not coincidental:
if it gets much worse, he or she may wish to hop on a ‘plane and flee before
the fans who were at the match and left in the dark as to why these often
bizarre decisions are being made can reach Stockley Park.)
Martin
Atkinson is an experienced referee. And yet it would not surprise me to hear in
the near future that he has decided to hang up his whistle. At the Emirates
Stadium on Sunday 27 October he was made to look foolish by the VAR, firstly by
being overruled to give a penalty and rescind a yellow card for diving; and
then for obeying VAR and disallowing a perfectly good goal which could have won
the game for Arsenal.
According to the pundits on the BBC’s Match of the Day 2 programme – MoTD2 – on Sunday 3
November, the previous day Mr Atkinson had been on the other end of the VAR
system for the Aston Villa V Liverpool match, and overruled the pitch referee
by disallowing a Liverpool ‘goal’ for an offside decision which, when analysed,
only he could see. Everyone else appears to have been baffled by the decision.
On the 3rd, Mr Atkinson was the on-pitch referee for the Everton V
Tottenham match; and was made to look foolish once again by the VAR, Anthony
Taylor.
The MoTD2
pundits pointed out that Mr Taylor, sitting (comfortably, one assumes) in his
cubicle in Stockley Park, ruled once against giving a penalty to Tottenham; and
twice against giving a penalty to Everton, the first for a foul by a Tottenham
player, the second for a handball in the penalty area. And whilst the decision not to
award Tottenham a penalty was correct, each of the decisions not to award the
Everton penalties appeared to be wrong. They both should have been given as
penalties. Furthermore, VAR simply highlighted Mr Atkinson’s inconsistency – a point
missed by the MoTD2 pundits.
As the
decision not to award Tottenham a penalty was upheld, Mr Atkinson should have
given Son a yellow card for diving – as he had originally done for Wilfried
Zaha in the Arsenal V Crystal Palace game. If he thought one was a dive, why
not book Son for a clear (and theatrical) dive? That penalty decision at the
Emirates came back to haunt Mr Atkinson again at Goodison Park. The first
penalty he refused to give Everton was almost a carbon copy of the one he did
eventually award to Crystal Palace at the Emirates, with the attacker falling
over a leg clumsily stuck out by the defender.
Far from
helping referees, VAR is more and more undermining them and making them look
foolish. The question repeatedly being asked is: why doesn’t the on-pitch
referee go and look at the monitor at the side of the pitch, as they do across
the Continent? Not only would he or she then be able to have a proper
discussion with the Video Assistant Referee, they would also retain their right
– as the Rules state – to be the ultimate arbiter in the game. That rule is
simply not being applied, turning the game into a farce; or to use a term now
creeping in, Premier League football is becoming VARcical.
ENDS
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