More than eight years ago - on March 10, 2010 to be exact, I wrote here that it was good that instant replay would not be used in soccer. Would slow down the game, I said.
Well, instant replay, known as VAR for video-assistant-referee, is here as reported in today's New York Times. Although the English Premier League and UEFA which runs the Champions League, have not used VAR, it is at the World Cup in Russia. And Christopher Clarey writes in the Times article, "There will be bumps, maybe even an occasional accident, but the use of replay in critical situations, which is what V.A.R. is to be limited to, is still the best chance to make the World Cup and the sport a fairer proposition."
Clarey says that a study by Italy's Serie A showed that compared to the previous season, referee errors dropped from 5.78 percent of decisions to less than 1 percent. Expulsions were down 7.1 percent. And on a particularly encouraging note, simulation, also known as diving, was down 35.3 percent. Meanwhile, the amount of time when the ball was actually in play during a 90-minute game increased by an average of 43 seconds to just over 51 minutes.
The article recognizes the argument against replay: that unlike sports such as baseball and American football, there are not natural stoppages and that to hold up a game for replay would disrupt the flow of play, one of the sport's attractions. I agree. The counter to that is that there are indeed stoppages for throw-ins, corner kicks, injuries, substitutions and arguing with referees. Generally none of these take as long as the replay review.
What is interesting is that under VAR the referee on the field makes the replay call, that is has the right to overrule himself. as happened in yesterday's France-Australia match in the World Cup in which the referee aid he had missed a foul in the box and awarded France a penalty kick, which proved to be the decisive in a 2-1 win.
I'm still not convinced that VAR is good for the game, but as Clarey writes, There is no going back now. In a world where fans are already reviewing every big decision on their screens, referees deserve the best possible chance to get their decisions right."
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