Despite the best efforts of administrators in various sports, the fact that in-game decisions are made by people, and are frequently subjective, means that no sport can ever be free of controversy. In many ways, sport without controversy would be like Sherlock Holmes without Dr Watson, or Tom without Jerry, and a contentious LBW decision, a dubious try, or a debatable offside all give the pundits on TV or the armchair fan something meaty to chew over. Sports like boxing, especially Olympic boxing, where victories are often awarded thanks to the decision of the judges, are particularly prone to argument. In fact, boxing has got to the point where it is in danger of being taken off the Olympic programme; at the 2016 Rio games, six judges were sent home following a number of decisions some observers said were "incomprehensible." One boxer to suffer was Irish Bantamweight Michael Conlan, who was on the wrong end of a particularly debatable verdict when he lost a split decision against Russia's Vladimir Nikitin.
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| Irish boxer Michael Conlan's defeat at the 2016 Olympics was viewed by many as a travesty. |
Sports like boxing, diving, dressage, and gymnastics all have an element of subjectivity in how the outcomes are decided - within strict guidelines of course - and when there is subjectivity in deciding a result then there will always be debate, there will always be differences of opinion. But in sports where the result is determined by who can score the most goals, tries, runs, or points, then the element of subjectivity is reduced to individual incidents, which may be important, may even go a long way to determining the outcome, but are not in themselves necessarily the only thing that is the difference between victory and defeat. In rugby, cricket, and tennis, technology has played a part in decision making for many years. Hawkeye was introduced by tennis in 2002 and had it been around when John McEnroe was in his pomp, then Wimbledon would have been a lot less eventful. By the by, I always said at the time that I could not understand how tennis tolerated the abuse that McEnroe dished out to umpires, regardless of the validity of his arguments; no other sport would have.
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| John McEnroe: Great player, but no other sport would have tolerated his behaviour. |
But while technology used in rugby, cricket, and tennis has seemingly enhanced and improved decision making, and by and large ensured fairer outcomes, there is one sport in which far from removing controversy, technology has actually created yet more disputes, more arguments, and much more debate, and that sport is association football. For many years I have been of the opinion that technology ought to keep its nose out of football because the Laws of The Game are the same whether it's a World Cup Final being played in front of one hundred thousand, or a Sunday league game on Hackney Marshes being watched by the proverbial one man and his dog. The Laws actually say so, even today the latest version says, in the introduction, "Football is the greatest sport on earth. It is played in every country and at many different levels. The Laws of the Game are the same for all football throughout the world from the FIFA World through to a game between young children in a remote village." Except, that is no longer true.
First came goal-line technology, which is now used in top-flight football in England, France, Italy, and Germany, and despite my previous misgivings, its use has proven successful, but this is because, by its very nature, a decision on whether the ball crossed the line is a binary one, objective and not subjective. So far as I am aware, there has never been a goal awarded or not by goal-line technology where that decision was later proved to be incorrect. The same cannot be said for the decisions made in any number of games thanks to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).
The Laws say that remit of VAR is to assist the match referee, "in the event of a ‘clear and obvious error’ or ‘serious missed incident’ in relation to:
· Goal/no goal
· Penalty/no penalty
· Direct red card
· Mistaken identity when the referee cautions or sends off the wrong player"
All too often however, it seems that referees are being invited to review decisions where the 'error' is neither clear nor obvious, where in fact they got it right first time. And it appears, having been invited to review their decision, they feel obliged to reverse it, no matter how absurd the outcome. Take the penalty that Marcus Rashford converted for Manchester United in their Champions League win over Paris St Germain recently. The spot kick was awarded for handball - one of my hobby horses, I'm afraid - and the decision polarised opinion. In one camp were the former footballers -now pundits - on BT Sport, ex-referees like Keith Hackett, and everyone associated with PSG, all adamant that it was no penalty. In the other camp were Peter Walton (acting as a refereeing expert on TV) , Uefa and... well, that's about it. The Manchester United players and supporters, obviously not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, literally and metaphorically shrugged their shoulders and thanked Dame Fortune for the luck that had come their way. How many actually thought it was a penalty? Not many, would be my guess.
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| Marcus Rashford converts the spot-kick |
My problem with the decision, and I'm not alone in this, is that to penalise a handball, the Law currently says the act must be deliberate. Peter Walton's take on it was that it was deliberate because the player made insufficient effort to avoid accidental contact between ball and hand, a totally specious argument in my view. I have always been of the opinion that penalising a player for an unintentional handball is wrong under Law 12 (Fouls and Misconduct), even if the player gains an advantage, because an accidental event does not, retrospectively, become deliberate as a result of the outcome. I've also said (to anyone who will listen, and to the point of such boredom where even I'm finding it tedious) that the Law should change so that an advantage accrued from an accidental handball is penalised. And it seems that the Law makers might be moving in that direction. Former Premier League referee, David Elleray has said that for handball, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) - who are responsible for the Laws of The Game - are moving away from determining an offense based on intent and towards outcome. From next season, while deliberate handball will remain an offense (naturally), any contact between ball and hand - deliberate or accidental - will be penalised if a player scores a goal with their hand, or if a player creates a goal-scoring opportunity after having gained possession or control of the ball with their hand or arm. In my view this can only be a good thing, especially since another former Premier League referee, Dermot Gallagher says, "80 per cent of the handballs that referees give are not deliberate, but because a player gains a material advantage." In other words, they have not been applying the letter of the Law, but rather what in their view is its spirit.
Referees are under more scrutiny than ever these days, their every decision reviewed, analysed, and criticised by TV pundits. They need all the help they can get, and in principle, VAR is there to offer that help, so it is ironic that in so many high profile decisions - and Manchester United's winning penalty in Paris is just one such - the verdicts when VAR has been invoked have provoked as much, if not more controversy, than the decisions they were reviewing. Just a week after United's VAR incident, the Champions League game between their Manchester rivals, City, and German side Schalke 04, saw VAR used four times, to the consternation of many observers.[1] And a major criticism of the use of VAR in that game, and in others, is the apparently interminable amount of time taken to reach a decision that is then even more controversial than the one the review was called for.
Other sports have got their equivalents of VAR right, and so too - hopefully - will football. How long that takes and how many perverse decisions teams have to suffer along the way is anyone's guess.
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