Why are people so afraid of instant video replays in football?
The move to keep Rob Styles and Ian Gosling (the assistant referee who failed to spot Fulham’s equalizer against Middlesbrough) out of the next weekend’s fixtures is a damage-limitation exercise and does nothing to cure the real problem.
Punishing Styles and Gosling does not prevent such incidents from happening in the future - it gives them a good kick up the backside and warns other refs, but conversely it also puts over-stressed referees under more pressure and gives players and managers license to have a go at referees if they disagree with decisions.
It’s a public-appeasing gesture, like throwing a gladiator to be slaughtered to the lions so that the hordes can cheer and hopefully be distracted from the harsh reality that the soldiers are raping their mothers and sisters at will.
Thanks to goal line technology under testing at Reading (expected to be presented to Fifa at the end of this year and trialled from the 2008/2009 season - at a cost of 50k pounds per ground), incidents like Healy’s disallowed goal will hopefully disappear from football. However, issues like that Malouda penalty still remain and to solve them the Premier League and Fifa in general need to take a good hard look at the situation and find a solution that minimizes errors.
Why are people so afraid of instant video replays in football?
It’s a fair question, I think, because every time video technology is discussed with reference to football, especially post-match reviews or in-game reviews where the referee does not have a close and clear view of an incident, there is a vocal segment who rise up in arms against the use of video replays.
The arguments presented usually take one of the following tracks:
- It’s not traditional and we should stick to the spirit of football.
Football is about finding out which team is better on a given day - and incorrect decisions have an unfair impact on the final result and give an inaccurate representation of the ‘difference’ between the two teams. Often these decisions can change games, or change results completely.
- Replays will take too much time and interrupt the flow of the game
In some situations replays may hold up play; in others they can easily be used while there is a genuine hold up in play (a player is down, the ball is out of play, etc). The key here is to find a way to make it work so that the ‘flow’ can be maintained as much as possible, not reject solutions out of hand just because you don’t like change.
- Video replays are often inconclusive
This is similar to the previous argument - yes, in some cases video replays are inconclusive but in many cases they give a better insight into what happened instead of the guess the referee has to make on the spot. Once again, the key is to make things work better and minimize errors, and video replays give us a way to do that. We’ve already established beyond a shadow of a doubt (through painful experience) that referees are not going to get it right all the time. How about we give them some help?
- The referee should make the decisions
Yes, the ref should make the decisions. That’s his job. But the ref cannot make the right call on all decisions because sometimes he doesn’t have enough time, sometimes he doesn’t have the right view and sometimes he’s just wrong. We already have assistant referees there to help the referee make the right decisions. It has helped referees make a lot of correct calls. Why can’t we do the same again and give the referees more assistance, so that they get more decisions right?
People are afraid of change. People are also fucking lazy. The combination means that not only do people claim that video replays are against the spirit of the game (and wrong decisions are ‘in spirit’?), they also hold up their hands and say that they have no idea how to make video replays work realistically.
It’s a fucking disgrace that every weekend fans and players have to put up with things that can easily be solved, 90% of the time, by using some technology and some brainpower.
The reason why we’re still suffering
I think one major reason why Fifa or the Premier League have done very little about this issue is because it is the referees who bear the brunt of the anger from fans, players and managers. Here’s a quick comparison for you:
Cristiano Ronaldo misses an open goal from 10 feet away while facing the goal and standing in the center, and manages to somehow spoon it over the top. Or take Tomas Rosicky’s miss from last season. Or that one by Fabregas. There are plenty of chances like these that come around, right?
How many of these players have been consigned to the bench in the next game because of them missing open goals?
In contrast, take Graham Poll or Rob Styles. Reliable referees most of the time, both have committed big, headline-grabbing mistakes. Both were pulled off the refereeing roster, with Poll being denied a role in the second half of the World Cup and Styles given the weekend off.
Referees are easy targets for the media and for the people involved in the game, and so while everyone has a go at Styles and people accuse him of being a Chelsea fan or playing for the camera, no one talks about the real issue, the fact that referees are judged for their mistakes, not for their correct decisions, and that it is impossible for a referee to get all decisions right because he does not have enough resources available to him.
The refs are unfairly criticised
There’s this notion in the media that referees play for the cameras, that they love to hog the limelight. Whether refs are attention-seekers or not does not affect their decision-making - it may have an impact on how they talk to the press or how they talk to the players on the pitch, but when it comes to making the right calls, does it sound reasonable to you that a referee would give 3 yellow cards because he was feeling left out?
Or give a penalty where there was none because he wanted the attention?
Yes, there are biased referees, but it’s a bit hypocritical to call Styles biased against Liverpool or for Chelsea after seeing some of the yellow cards handed out to both sides (the first yellow card, given to Essien for a challenge on Arbeola where the Liverpool player played for the fouled and jumped over Essien on to the ground is a good example).
Rob Styles made a mistake, and when Liverpool players vehemently protested he turned to his experience and training and did what all refs do when players contest their decisions - stick to his guns.
And therein lies the biggest problem in football - the myth that referees are always right, even if they are wrong.
While the behavior of players towards referees is questionable, the fact remains that there should be room in football matches for referees to take back their decisions if they find out that they are wrong. Of course, you cannot rely on the players who are going to argue their own side, so the ref needs the help from his assistants.
A template to fix refereeing mistakes
So how could Styles have fixed the Malouda penalty incident? The moment a penalty was given, the fifth official in charge of video replays (hypothetically speaking, of course) would have played that incident back and made a decision on the spot and conveyed it to the referee via radio. How long would all this have taken?
I saw the whole thing on TV and we had the time to see the replays on TV a couple of times before Lampard lined up to take the penalty. I’m going to guess that the assistant ref would have needed one replay to tell Styles that “hey, Malouda wasn’t fouled, what are you doing?” and then Styles could take the decision back based on advice from his assistants and give a goal-kick (or a drop ball outside Liverpool’s penalty area) instead.
What problems would something like this cause? Player reactions, mostly. But that’s a different story, and yes, there is a serious need for well-defined regulations for players that deal with abusive behavior towards referees, with diving and with red and yellow card offenses.
But apart from player reactions, what would be the outcome of such a system? The game would go on, the referee would have had a chance to correct his mistake and the contest would not have been ruined.
Some might say that “this is not football”.
No one person has any authority on what football is like, and if someone advocates a version of football that actively refuses to fix such mistakes then not only do they sound ridiculous, they are also hurting the game.
Comments are welcome.
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Discussion - 22 Responses
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I’ve even heard some Liverpool fans comment that Styles was being paid off by Roman Abramovich. It’s a little crazy how crazy and vitriolic people get at the refs, and goes way way overboard, but the feeling is understandable. If Rosicky or Ronaldo miss the net, that’s at least your team’s fault for failing to score. By contrast, if a ref makes a bad decision, it’s out of your team’s control, and feels more like a mugging. That doesn’t excuse some of the behavior towards the refs, especially from the players.
The introduction of video replay might even actually increase the flow of the game. If decisions can be reviewed quickly and efficiently (say within 30 seconds of an incident), there would be less cause for players to mob the ref and bitch and moan. That’s the real drain on the pace of the game. I’m not 100% sure what the current rule is, but only the Captain should be able to register a protest with the referee, and it should be an automatic yellow for any other player who does so. It’s gotten out of hand, and needs to be addressed.
excellent point about the captain - it’s not a rule yet but it should be so.
But then the problem with the captain is in L’pool’s case their captain seems to have an unusual amount of control over the ref.
I heard a good one this morning from the guy who does the papers on SkySports news in the morning he said: ‘a company that Rob Styles is involved in paved Roman Abramovic’s driveway’. I shit you not he actually said that as an accusation to Rob Styles and that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. No doubt he’ll be back next week to give us more of his seemingly infinite ‘wisdom’(BS).
I actually think the penalty awarded to Chelsea is a bad example as pro-video-evidence. Had the fifth official decided against the penalty (which he obviously would have), Drogba would have lost a huge scoring opportunity, since he received the ball just after Malouda let it pass… then what?
Well then it would have been Chelsea complaining about the system.
The real problem with video evidence is that if you allow a fifth referee to overrule the referee on the pitch you can cause confusion as to who is really in charge. So a system needs to be put in place regarding use of video evidence.
My view would be that teams should be able to challenge any referees decision and request a review. In order to prevent time wasting the number of challenges should be limited to say 3 per team per game, the team captain should officially request the challenge, and he should be yellow carded if the challenge conclusively shows the original decision was correct.
I don’t think Drogba was offside, but I’ll make a more general point then that a situation like this could occour in any match, where overruling the referee could deprive the attacking team of any sort of follow-up chance in the situation.
am i the only one who is a little concerned by the lack of protection of referees are getting from the FA and Premier League ? it was a bad call, a mistake and Liverpool lost out. But the way the official has publicly been hung out to dry is just sad. He apologised and said it was his call but what retro action can we take ? nothing. So you move on. In Spain certain referees come with the reputation of being media hungry so players are careful. If its a bad decision, you accept it as a part of the game and move on. It shouldn’t happen but its a human game and humans make mistakes. Rather than challenging in outrage stupid decisions like Ferdinand’s 9 month ban or Rooney 3 game suspension before the beginning of last season, the FA is fucking all the officials who are doing their best in controlling a game where they get abused and criticized no matter how well they perform.
Yeh he was its still kinda crazy at the kind of penalty given agaisnt but if video Technology had have been introduced we would have not won the champions league 2005 Garcias “Goal” we could have won in extra time but i cant be sure.
If it had been introduced Liverpool would still have 4 points we would’nt have had a free kick at Villa so its a 50 50 i dont really care
Initial reactions;
I think football should be played the same, whether its the Prem or a Sunday Pub team, and you cant have the technology everywhere.
I enjoy football debates, I’ve seen from both playing football and watching over the years, that ‘flow’ and ‘momentum’ are crucial in football. Where would it stop? If you are looking at penalties, do you look at fouls outside the box too? How about when the ball goes out after a 50-50 challenge? Given that in an ‘average’ football match, the ball spends about 60 minutes in play, do you stop the watch? Who makes the decision to replay? The ref? The managers, the captains, any player, the crowd even?
Football is NOT an exact science, and I dont want it to be.
I dont want any opportunities to make it more ‘American’ and have time-outs and commercial breaks whilst the replay is studied.
There are ‘bigger’ problems. Players have no respect for ref’s, thats intolerable. Players are constantly diving and trying to gain unfair advantages. That I find disgusting and think should be punished by video evidence AFTER the game.
Goal line technology if its instant is a good thing.
Maybe I like vinyl more than cd’s too.
The decision should be in the ref’s hands. He should be the one to decide if a video replay is required or not. They’d simply need to adjust the training of refs so that if they’re unsure about a decision, they don’t decide quickly and stick with it. I have no idea whether Styles was 100% sure of his decision or not at the moment he made it over the weekend to give Chelsea a PK, but if there was any doubt in his mind he could have triggered a buzzer or something, or called to a booth, and get an official to give him the verdict.
This way, the ‘power’ rests on the ref as always, and it might still miss some of the subtler bad decisions, but it’d be a definite improvement, and result in fewer bad decisions.
In any case, Hawkeye can’t come soon enough, as any Fulham fan will atest.
I’m not sure I agree with having “Goal Line Technology”, because, as ‘ohmygosh’ stated; top level football should be essentially the same as is at the bottom. Is it just gonna be the ‘rich’ leagues that are to be using this system?
Things work themselves out in the end, in the words of Justin Trousersnake; “What goes around, comes around”.
Middlesbrough were robbed at West Ham last season when they got a goal when the ball clearly wasn’t over the line, then at Fulham on Sat the decision went in our favour.
Also, I seem to remember Harry Kewell quite blatantly diving a couple of seasons ago (when the defender in question was a clear foot away from him), I didn’t see any Liverpool fans complaining about that one.
deja vu on this topic, the nfl and ncaa football here have been going round and round on this for ages. i think video replay can work in football, particularly in the EPL where there is a bit of money available. The college game here has put it off outside of minor testing by crying budget contstraints, while the NFL has been able to work out a reasonable system. the key lies in strictly limiting what is and what is not reviewable and limiting the number of challenges each team gets. the other element is that an on field ruling can only be overturned by clear and indisputable video evidence…so sometimes, if the replay isnt clear, nothing changes…
of course, our football already has tons of stoppages to the action, and fans still bitch about replays, and ref mistakes, but the important thing is, more calls are being made correctly, and the game improves…plus the players thenhave to appeal to the coach to ask for an appeal, and if they lose the appeal, the team loses a timeout, so theres a disincentive built into the system to ‘cry wolf’…just some thoughts to throw into the mix
We are living in a new technological age yet some segments of our society continue to operate as if they are living in the Dark Ages. Will the footballing powers that be wake up and smell the java. If you have a tool that can end unfairness and controversy, then why not. I couldn’t care less about losing the human element. There is nothing worse than being a supporter of a club an have to endure the rubbish call Liverpool fans had to stomach over the weekend. It’s total bollocks and we should all wake up and realize the world has changed. Get rid of the internet, computers, cell phones, wide screen tv’s and hell automobiles for that matter. Lets go back to pre Victorian England where we tolerated human error because there was no instant replay.
Stop thinking like dinosaurs and accept instant replay as the first of many salvations to the modern game.
but where does it stop? we’ll be replacing real football with Pro Evolution eventually if you think like that - after all, the graphics just keep getting better and better.
Football is meant to be a sport, I know it can be frustrating at times, but that part and parcel of it. Mistakes happen, the idea is that you learn from them and try to not make them again - isn’t that what sport is all about? Maybe if the FA/Premier League actually put some time in to improving the standards of refereeing throughout the country then these mistakes would be reduced.
I just wonder if it had happen to Bristol Rovers and not Liverpool, would we still be having this discussion…?
Actual incase you didnt do your homework liverpool fans always boo kewell when he goes to ground they either dont like him or something i dont know
oh yes and malouda didnt even dive he fell into Finnan witch makes it more the Refs fault than any of the Chelsea players. None of them claimed a penalty it was bad Reffing so get your facts right first ok
“top-level football should be essentially the same as it is at the bottom”
I disagree wholeheartedly with this. I think it is the responsibility of the top leagues to pioneer the changes and new technologies in the game. They are the ones that can afford to experiment with expensive new equipment (50,000 pounds is a pittance for top-flight clubs, but definitely a sizable investment for League Two clubs, for example). Once the technology is established, the companies are guaranteed a return on their R&D investment, and can improve the product and make it cheaper, thus allowing it to filter down to the lower leagues, and everyone benefits.
“Football is meant to be a sport, I know it can be frustrating at times, but that part and parcel of it. Mistakes happen, the idea is that you learn from them and try to not make them again - isn’t that what sport is all about? ”
Again, I disagree, but this is much more subjective. If there was a robot referee that could spot every single foul, and goal and whatever else perfectly, it should absolutely be used in every game. The refs are there to prevent a mass-brawl from happening and to adjudicate 50-50 decisions. If we can improve their accuracy, why not grab that opportunity with both hands?
To all those jumping over the band wagon for video technology, assume that Styles had access to instant reply between SF & Malouda incident. For him
“Styles” to see the reply, he had to stop the game and watch the incident for a decision. Now turn the clock back to when SF & Malouda collided, the ball was at the feet of Drogba to score. Had the referee blown his whistle for video verdict, the clear advantage for Drogba to score would have been diminished. After watching instant video the referee knows that the incident would not have warranted for a penalty, what the referee is supposed to do next?! Instant video is not the answer for such incidents when advantage rules are critical to the outcome. However, goal mouth video reply in black and white situations such as Fulham versus M’boro’s game is justified.
Strikarz
Unfortunately football is not just a sport. It’s a multi billion dollar business where individual teams have an awful lot at stake. The money and not the play on the pitch rules in todays professional sports arenas. It’s a shame but it is a reality. In the world of big business a “mistake” not only costs a corporation a great deal of money and position in the marketplace, it also gets those who made the mistake sacked. Even community run sports team feel the heat to perform at a high level just in order to survive financially. So pleas don’t tell me it’s only a sport. It is capitalist free enterprise and heads roll when money is lost. FOR EXAMPLE, what if Carlos Tevez’ goal against United on the last day of the season was ruled offside, can you imagine the financial ramifications of that decision on the entire club’s infrastructure as well as the future ticket sales potential for a team being relegated. If Liverpool end up finishing only 1 or 2 points behind Chelsea at the end of the season, because of Sunday great gaff, will Liverpool FC and it’s fans be able to live with the decision? It would cost the club millions. Modernizing and progressing forward does not mean we are playing Pro Evolution on our XBOX. And anyway, I kind of like the fact that no goals I have ever scored on Pro Evolution have ever been ruled no goal through a wrong decision. Proof positive of how well technology can protect the supporter and business interests of the game.
Harry, Jose Mourinho said it best “there is no advantage law in the box.” Styles blew the whistle almost immediately anyway, so whether there was a video replay or not wouldn’t change the flow in that respect.
Now, there’s only one problem I see with this sort of thing. If we assume that Styles had access to replay technology, and he blows the whistle, checks up, and realizes it’s not a foul. What is the correct reaction? Free-kick to Liverpool? Drop kick? I’ll be buggered if I know. No matter what scousers say (Liverpool_fan notwithstanding), Malouda clearly didn’t dive, so it’s not a foul/card against him. It’s a tough situation to call, and if this sort of thing ever happens, it will take some thorough thought by FIFA.
Well, this kind of technology blunts the edge of the game. Every fan needs a high and low, they need something to talk about over the competitive season like…”That shit decision against Middlesbrough…”.
But I’ve seen the video referee be used in Rugby League in Australia to great effect, and it can delay the game for a few moments.
I think that any technology that can aid, but not hinder the pace of the game, whilst providing a favorable and fair outcome for teams involved is a great thing.