No one wants to see a player sent off for an accidental foul, especially after four minutes of a game, but though it was possible to feel sorry for Harry Maguire against Burnley last Saturday it was almost a relief to come across a situation where everyone knew what the referee’s decision ought to be.
Maguire had to go, simple as that. His offense was considerably less heinous than that of Willie Young, the Arsenal center-half whose shockingly cynical lunge at Paul Allen in the 1980 FA Cup final led to red cards being introduced for professional fouls in the first place, but the overall result was exactly the same. A goalscoring opportunity was unfairly lost through no fault of the attacking team.
It has been mentioned that now the triple jeopardy situation has been amended, and a defender no longer automatically collects a red card for illegally preventing a goal in the penalty area, the same sort of leniency should apply to accidental fouls elsewhere on the pitch. Yet where, in that event, would have been the redress for Burnley? They would not have had an opportunity to score from the penalty spot, they would simply have had a free-kick from a fair way out, as West Ham did in 1980, which in all likelihood would have been successfully defended.
The only question the referee had to ask himself at Turf Moor was whether a foul had been committed. The answer was clearly yes, so as the rules presently stand, the unlucky Maguire received the appropriate punishment. It could be argued that an elegant and equable solution would have been to leave Maguire on the pitch and award Burnley a penalty, though the game has never embraced the idea of penalty fouls for offenses outside the box, and given the current level of controversy over incidents inside the area that is probably just as well. Maguire was unfortunate to fall foul of the rules so early in the game, but the key point is that the rules are clear so no one had any real complaints, not even the player himself.
That in its own way was quite refreshing after the grey area disputes of the last few weeks. Manchester United’s handball penalty against Paris Saint-Germain was a matter of interpretation and intense debate, as was Raheem Sterling’s first goal against Watford, which appeared to have been scored from an offside position.
A number of players have now been asked about their understanding of the rules and admitted they are as much in the dark as anyone else, which never used to be the case in football. Everyone knows that rugby union, for instance, has technical rules so arcane and complicated that no-one in the stands can possibly follow the referee’s reasoning in awarding decisions around a scrum or a rolling maul, which is why the official is now obliged to signal to the crowd what offense he has just penalized. However, football is a sport that formerly prided itself on having rules so transparent and straightforward that most spectators could understand them.
For the last century or so, in other words, the majority of people watching a football match would have a good idea of what the referee’s decision would be in any given situation. The official was not on the pitch for his interpreting skills or his ability to remember a long list of possible infringements, he was there to blow his whistle and stop the game when necessary and then make the appropriate form of restart. When referees got things wrong, which they did from time to time, the crowd would let them know about it in no uncertain terms. Now the crowd is often as puzzled as the players, even, perhaps especially, when VAR is involved.
There is a general assumption that everything is going to run super smoothly next season because VAR will be around to help referees get everything right. Already we have seen enough to realize this is probably a pipe dream. The rules need tightening first, especially around handball and offside. Had VAR been around at the time of Thierry Henry’s notorious handball in a World Cup play-off for France against Ireland the Irish might have made it to the 2010 tournament, but Presnel Kimpembe’s offense against Manchester United was nothing like as clear cut.
Last week when Sergio Agüero came on to score the winning goal against Swansea in the FA Cup the television commentator noticed after the event that he might have been fractionally offside and said the goal would probably not have survived VAR scrutiny. Yet if Agüero was so fractionally offside that no one on the pitch actually noticed in real time, do we really want to stop the game for a series of replays to establish that what looked a perfectly good goal should be discounted?
We really need to straighten these things out before VAR is introduced next season. Some people will argue that the letter of the law must be obeyed and the precision of VAR must be respected no matter how many replays are required. Others feel just as strongly that borderline offsides do not necessarily confer an unfair advantage, and the original purpose of the law, to prevent goal-hanging, has long been forgotten.
These arguments will run and run next season, quite possibly mid-match. That’s why it is good to have something everyone can agree about. VAR could not have done anything to help Harry Maguire. He had to go, and everyone knew it.
(The Guardian)
