SHOULD THEY OR SHOULDN’T THEY INTRODUCE INSTANT REPLAYS?

BAD REFEREEING DECISIONS;

We all know there have been some howlers made by match officials this season.  Penalties denied, non-penalties given, offside goals allowed, legitimate goals disallowed, bookings for diving when there was no dive, etc.  And every team, and every fan of every team, has felt aggrieved by an incorrect decision at some point during the season.  So it’s no surprise that the old question of video replays on dubious calls has once again come to the fore.

But just how bad are the match officials?  Let’s assume there are 2 bad calls made by the officials during the 10 Premier League matches that take place over an average league weekend.  Now 2 bad calls isn’t great because that means that 2 matches have been decided by incorrect decisions (unless both calls occur in the same match).

However, when you consider that (not including stoppage time at the end of each half) those 10 matches equate to 15 hours of football.  That gives us 1 bad refereeing decision every 7.5 hours.  Additionally not every Premier League weekend is blighted by controversial/wrong/dubious officiating decisions so the time between such decisions is almost certainly greater.

WOULD INSTANT REPLAYS BE A HELP OR A HINDRANCE?

Obviously this question has its advocates and opponents and like the majority of fans I believe that something has to be done to improve the system.  There is no doubting the accuracy of instant replays and their use would eliminate incorrect calls.  However, the possible use of instant replays raises some interesting questions;

At what level should instant replays be introduced?

In many ways, with all the television cameras around the pitches, instant replays are already a small of the game.  But if the instant replays are made available to the referee how many times during the game would he have to stop the game so that he, or the fourth official, can view the video footage of an incident?  Would players and managers be satisfied with using it solely for dubious penalty claims, offside decisions and disputed goals?  Considering how the players surround the match official over numerous decisions I doubt it.  In all probability they would surround the referee and implore him to view a replay of a bad tackle that led to a second yellow card, or straight red card for a teammate.

How much time would have to be added at the end of each match or each half?

As armchair fans we have the benefit of multiple angles of contentious decisions and surely, in order to make a definitive decision the referee or fourth official would need to do likewise.  Let’s assume that each team disputes 3 decisions during the course of a money-spinning cup tie or high intensity derby match.  The referee or fourth official views each incident from 4 different angles (in front of the goal, behind the goal and from each sideline) and each replay takes 10 seconds.  If he is able to make his determination after viewing each of the 4 different angles the match would last 1 minute longer.  But if you watch as much televised football as the majority of fans you’ll notice that not even the television commentators can always make a definitive decision after viewing an incident once.  Let’s go with viewing each of the 4 angles twice thereby adding 2 minutes to the length of the match.  Not too bad, players have played longer periods of additional time.  But what about the time it takes for the players to surround the referee and convince him to view the instant replay?  Another 30 seconds, 1 minute per incident would tack on another 3 – 6 minutes.  So instead of playing an additional 3 minutes at the end of the second half there could be as much as 10 or 11 minutes added on.  And that’s 10 or 11 minutes during which another incident might occur.  I don’t know about any of you but when my team are 1 goal up going into injury time I’m on the edge of my seat praying for the final whistle.  I don’t know if my nerves would be able to take any more.

What about placing an additional official behind each goal and using a chipped ball?

I have to admit that placing an additional official discreetly behind each goal is my personal preference.  But it too has its flaws. Like the referee the official behind the goal would only see the incident in real time and only once from one angle.  Whilst it would lead to a quicker decision on the part of the officials it might not be any more definitive than using a single official.  Although it might initially make players think twice about “diving” in the box it still leaves room for human error.  Additionally players are very skillful and inventive and eventually they would work out ways to fool both officials into believing they were tripped when they actually dived.  And the time factor might once again rear its ugly head because if players are unable to convince one official a rival player dived they’d almost certainly plead their case to the other official.

A chipped ball might well solve some of the inherent problems in the game such as did the whole of the ball cross the whole of the line for a goal?  But its use would be extremely limited inasmuch as it would determine it a goal was scored or the ball actually went out of play but it wouldn’t answer the question as to whether it was a goal kick or a corner.  And although I’m sure the chips are extremely robust there is no guarantee that it wouldn’t malfunction or fail in some other way.  I don’t know about any of you but with the pounding a ball takes during the course of a match I’d hate to be a little chip stitched into the leather.

We have a dubious goals committee why not have a dubious decision committee?

This is a no-brainer and I’ll explain why in simple terms.  Team A wins their match by virtue of a disputed goal.  The victory puts them at the top of the table by 1 point from teams B, C and D.  The dubious decision meet and decide that the goal should be disallowed and declare the result to be a draw.  Team A then drops to fourth place behind the other three teams and immediately launch an appeal against the decision.  Meanwhile Joe Soap who had 22 points on the football pools that week discovers that he has 24 points and claims a bigger prize from the pools company.  The pools company then have to contact Fred Whatshisname and tell him to return some of the money they’d paid him.

In conclusion although I believe that something has to be done to address the inconsistencies in refereeing decisions I don’t think there is a suitable way to accomplish it.  At least not at the moment, even with all the advances in technology.