There are some football cliches that are woven into the fabric of the game. Good feet for a big man, goals change games, a game of two halves, you know the sort of thing.
Discussions around refereeing aren’t immune to this sort of patter either. If you listen to any group of fans discussing officials and their decisions at any given match, you’ll find that the ref was usually dying to give that, he is behaving like a headmaster, and you’ll have definitely seen them given.
As if such a rich lexicon wasn’t already enough, new footballing cliches are always taking hold. Take this one for instance that has wormed its way into Scottish football of late, in particular regard to our men in black and, more specifically, their use of VAR technology – ‘there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the on-field decision’.
We’ve heard this line, and variations of it, from countless pundits, former referees and even from head of refereeing operations, Willie Collum, himself. When he used this term, what Collum was saying was that VAR should only go against a referee’s initial interpretation of a major, game-changing incident when the burden of proof is sufficient to do so.
Cards on the table: as any regular readers may know, I have a hatred for VAR that may be bordering on the unhealthy, and would cast it into the fires of Mount Doom – from whence it no doubt came – at the first opportunity.
You know how we’re always hearing about how much better the quality of life is in Scandinavia? Well, after Norwegian clubs joined their Swedish counterparts in voting to kick VAR out of their top two leagues last month, I’m starting to think our friends from the fjords may just be onto something.
I’ve often praised Collum in the past for his excellent communication since taking on the role as head honcho of the refereeing fraternity, but he presumably forgot to inform Alan Muir of this change to operating procedure.
How else to explain the VAR official’s decision to rule out Celtic’s equaliser against Hibs at the weekend, going against the on-field referee Steven McLean’s call that the ball could not definitively have been said to have crossed the byline before Alistair Johnston centred for Daizen Maeda to score?
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McLean, and his assistant referee David Roome, are absolved of any blame here. As this was a ‘factual’ decision rather than a subjective one, there was no need for him to come to the pitchside monitor to review the footage. He would have assumed, as would the fans inside the stadium (remember them, the paying punters? Hello, is this thing on?), that the replays had shown clearly that the ball was out of play.
Except, barring a revelation in Collum’s next VAR review show that an SFA drone was in fact flying overhead that captured secret, definitive footage showing the ball had crossed the line that Muir alone had access to, no such pictures seem to exist.
By the way, just for clarity, the teams involved in this incident and even the way that McLean leaned with his on-field call are entirely irrelevant. The upside is that we got to hear that spine-tingling rendition of ‘Sunshine on Leith’ at the end of game from the Hibs support, and Celtic can spare the points, but that is hardly pertinent.
In fact, had the referee decided in the moment that he thought the ball had crossed the line and disallowed the goal himself, then that decision should also have stood if we follow the logic of how we have been told VAR should operate.
Put simply, can you prove that the on-field call was incorrect? If the answer is yes, intervene. If the answer is no, then stay out of it. Don’t just give us your hunch.
We were told at the outset when VAR was introduced that it would not stop controversies from arising, but it seems to me that it is creating as many of its own accord as it is quelling.
I feel sorry for Collum a little in all of this. It will be he who will be forced to front up and explain just why his VAR official came to his conclusion, and try to show his working. If there isn’t any, then I can’t imagine Brendan Rodgers or the Celtic supporters are likely to be appeased by Willie holding his hands up.
It is refreshing that he is offering up these mea culpas, but the regularity of them is starting to get a little embarrassing, and what little faith there was among fans, players and managers in both the standard of technology at our disposal in Scotland and the way it is being utilised is surely now spent.
I do believe that the referees - and Collum in particular - are trying their best. I don’t subscribe to any crackpot theories about bias in their decision making. But they were tying themselves in enough knots without the fankles that their use of VAR has gotten them into.
Collum has to get a grip on his officials and ensure they adhere rigidly to his directives so that we at least get some consistency around this point, or we could soon be losing that particular cliché about a lack of video evidence preventing VAR from overturning decisions from our game.
Or, we could ask ourselves why the Scandinavians always look so happy, and follow their lead…
