VAR being run by amateurs, it’s got calamity written all over it.
Last night at Easter Road heralded the start of the new era and it might be a painful experience to begin with because it’s been in place with professional officials at the helm for over a year in the English Premier League and it’s still causing uproar. Ian Maxwell was told it could to be horrendous initially and I fear the warnings to the SFA chief executive might well be bang on. It’s not going to stop arguments and battles. If you think it is, I refer you back to last weekend’s game at Anfield between Liverpool and Manchester City.
A City goal was chalked off for the type of offence referee Anthony Taylor had been letting go throughout the game beforehand. He was happy to let it go at the time too, only for the man at Stockley Park in his earpiece to tell him to consult a monitor over Erling Haaland’s tug on Fabinho.
We all saw the footage and still no one could agree whether it was a foul or not. It’s still subjective in that sense. It comes down to someone’s opinion in the VAR hut.
I’m not daft. I’m all for a system that makes sure there are no horrific mistakes, or no massive injustices. But it doesn’t stop the chaos and, if Liverpool against City taught the people in Scotland anything, it’s to follow three golden rules – be sensible, be brave and be quick about it.
Sensible is when it comes to the officials in the VAR unit. It took time to make things better in England with the bar being raised in terms of what should be highlighted.
You can’t have the men in the bunker shouting in the ear of the referee every two minutes. They have to let the on-field referees run the game as much as possible and only get involved if you have to.
One thing I will say is it should be a bit easier in Scotland in one sense because there are far fewer conmen and divers than in England’s top flight so there should be fewer of those issues to resolve by screen.
Being brave comes down to the referees on the pitch. Too often you know a decision is going to be made because he’s called to the monitor. It’s almost as if a mistake is being pointed out that he’ll have to rectify to save face yet that’s not always the case.
It’s been good to see some referees in England standby the courage of their convictions in recent weeks. Just because they’re called to the monitor it doesn’t mean they’re going to change their minds and that’s been refreshing and brave.
As for being quick, well that’s an obvious one. Football is a fast and emotive sport. You can’t be taking forever to make judgments. There has been nothing worse for supporters in stadiums to be sat around for over a minute with play stopped waiting for a VAR decision to be made, no matter the reason for the hold up.
It will also be far from ideal if in some stadiums fans might not get immediate communication as to why it’s been stopped in the first place, although I know they are trying to make sure information gets through. Things have improved in England with some tweaks but at the end of the day there’s no silver bullet because as always it’ll be subjective. One man in VAR HQ one day is going to make a different decision to another man another day for an incident that most of us think is exactly the same.
Take the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final between Kilmarnock and Dundee United in midweek. A penalty was awarded when a
Kyle Lafferty shot struck the arm of Liam Smith.
Everyone saw it struck the arm but not everyone agreed it was a penalty. Even after seeing 15 replays from all angles some guys thought it was unfair on the United defender to be punished and some guys thought it was the right call in favour of Killie.
One thing I definitely do not feel is right is bringing it in midway through a season and today’s fixture list in the Premiership offers an ideal example of why. In Dingwall earlier this season Ross County survived two red-card shouts and went on to win the game 1-0.
Retrospectively the SFA decided both Ross Callachan and Jack Baldwin were guilty of sending-off offences but it was too late to help Killie on the day. They still had to face 11 men.
The same thing could happen with them today. Is it fair that if that is the case those two Killie players get sent off and County are facing nine men? Of course not.
I understand the argument of getting it into play as soon as possible but it can’t be the middle of a competition. As soon as possible in this case should have been the start of this season or next.
It won’t take long for it to become indispensable mind you. We had a silly situation last Sunday when Leeds against Arsenal couldn’t even start because the technology wasn’t working.
Fans stood for an age waiting for it to be fixed when both managers Mikel Arteta and Jesse Marsch should just have shaken hands at designated kick-off time and agreed to start the match without it in that situation. I know you might think that’s a counter-argument to my last point about being fair across all games but it made no sense at Elland Road with everyone else ready to go.
In saying that we’ve had games held up recently because the goals are not the right size so it seems nothing is safe from blunder. I want VAR to work. I want it to be a success in Scotland. But what I want and what I get are usually two different things.
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