I’m not sure about this any more. There might be problems. The most important one, as it seems, it’s unfair. ManU and Chelsea would be able to afford better video ref teams than smaller clubs, and hence they’ll have an advantage with challenges. Even though generally rich teams do have the edge over poor ones, there’s no point in fooling ourselves that it’s not so, it would still be unfair if the decision process itself was also biased towards rich teams.

So, for the time being I’ll stick to my own video ref proposal. Possibly implemented in smaller steps. See my site for details:

http://www.fairfootball.com/video_ref.htm

I’ll take this as a compliment. Thanks. The truth is though I’m not one.

> and I think what this article does is make excuses for referees who are undertaking this task by the choice of nobody but themselves. The fact that he had too little guidance, or there were grey areas does not render him blameless

You can think like this, but the truth remains that the laws are too vague and unspecific. If the handball rule was worded as I’d like it to be, and if there was a comprehensive set of examples of what is and what is not a foul, then his personal blame had he taken the same decisions would have been much bigger. Hopefully this would lead to a better and more consistent way of reffing, at least in the 2 top competitions.

> He did a disgraceful job. He was too weak to make the important calls, while any competent referee would have.

I didn’t like his performance either, as I said here as well as on my site. But I stand to my opinion that had he had to make just 1 – 2 such calls, instead of 4 or 5, nobody would have considered it out of the ordinary.

Absolutely agree with you on this one. In football more than in any other game one ref mistake can change everything. That’s why it’s the one game that needs any help it can give to the refs, and, believe it or not, it’s precisely the game that won’t hear anything about the video ref, and probably with the most unspecific and ambiguous laws. This is what makes matters unbelievably worse. I tell you, in 20 years from now (hopefully much sooner), after people will get accustomed with the video ref and hopefully with some clarified laws, they’ll have a hard time believing football could ever be played like it is now. What the hell, a goal can stand that was scored with the hand (God or no God) and determine the winner of the game and ultimately the world champion, to name just the single most absurd situation.

Yes, recently I’ve also come to the conclusion that an appeals system would be the first video ref variant to be tried. It might be enough, for fouls and handballs. The other offenses, that is offside, ball in / out of play and yellow / red cards, should be called by an independent video ref. With the appeals system, it would be a must that a correct appeal doesn’t count against the number of allowed ones.

> but I would go further and would propose free kicks in penalty area with the penalty only for a 100% type of situation. Why call the penalty if there was no danger (Malouda situation). As the author said there always will be grey, but why give the penalty for everything just because it’s in the area, where is the logic for that?

I’m not with you on this one. The logic is that defenders would feel free to foul at will in the box, risking just a free kick. 100% situations are very rare, most of the times a professional defender, especially at higher level, will know how to do it to leave enough doubt for the ref.

Yes it will. In this instance, it would mean Eto’o would have kept his arm stuck to his body, which might have resulted in a goal. A deserved one. He could have easily done this, since he knew Ballack was going to shoot at him, that’s why he turned around in the first place. So either he keeps his arm to his body, or he concedes a penalty, which is still a deserved one.
An there’s no way to know for sure he didn’t extend his arm intentionally to try to block the shot. Neither you nor I nor the ref can say that for sure.