Referees being hooked up with microphones is nothing new in
other sports such as the NFL, but it is only now being tested in football, just
as the sport is still getting used to Video Assistant Referees and
semi-automated offside technology.
And so Uruguayan referee Andres Matonte was able to
succinctly explain why he awarded a late penalty to Real Madrid after coming
across to review a possible foul in the box during the Spanish club’s 4-1 win
over Al Ahly in the semi-final in Rabat on Wednesday.
“Penalty decision, foul by number 17”, Matonte told
spectators on looking at the challenge by Al Ahly’s Amr El Solia on Real
forward Vinicius Junior. Luka Modric’s kick was then saved.
Matonte’s exchanges with the Video Assistant Referee
remained confidential, but his brief announcement was relayed over loudspeakers
in the stadium, to the delight of the crowd, with the majority of fans backing
the European champions.
The International Football Association Board, the sport’s
lawmakers, approved the trial last month with English FA chief executive Mark
Bullingham — who sits on the board — saying it was “important in terms of
transparency”.
FIFA are considering further trials at the Under-20 World
Cup, scheduled to take place in Indonesia in May and June.
If deemed successful, the system may be given the green
light for the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in July and
August.
“I hope the spectators will benefit from this,” said
Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of FIFA’s referees committee.
“We are at the beginning, it’s the first time we’re doing
it, so certainly it might not be perfect…but I’m confident that the outcome
will be positive.”
Too many changes?
The first referee to explain his decisions to spectators was
China’s Ma Ning, during the tournament’s opening game between Al Ahly and
Auckland City.
He came across to review a possible penalty for a challenge
by Auckland’s Adam Mitchell on Taher Mohamed, before deciding to award a
free-kick just outside the box and show a red card to the defender for denying
an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
“We decided to (have) this trial…to make the decision taken
by the referee after a VAR intervention more understandable (for)…the
spectators at the stadium or (in front of) the television,” Collina added.
“I have to say that there are other experiences in other
sports, namely the NFL in American football, they (have been) doing it for
quite a long time. It seems that the referees are pretty comfortable with
this.”
Yet the desire to introduce more and more technology into
the sport may not go down well with everyone, especially as VAR — itself first
tested at the Club World Cup in 2016 — remains a source of controversy, the
very thing its introduction was supposed to reduce.
“Over the last 10 years all we have seen is changes to the
rules and the interpretation of them,” Eduardo Iturralde, a former Spanish
referee who has taken charge of more La Liga matches than anyone else and is
now a radio pundit in Spain, told AFP.
“What the spectator wants is more consistency with VAR
decisions, that something that is given as a foul in Germany is also given as a
foul in Spain. They want clarity.
“If you have to explain something that means spectators are
confused because the rules change so much.
“I don’t think football needs to copy the NFL. They are
different sports, different cultures.” -AP
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