The Confederations Cup kicked off in Russia this weekend.
And all the talk has been of Video Assistant Referees.
In the game between African champions Cameroon and Chile on Sunday, the biggest controversies happened with the new system being tested at the World Cup warm-up.
Now these aren’t the first tests, the VAR has already been used in the Club World Cup.
But this is the first time the rest of the world really gets to see what it means to have technology in football and the world seems to be divided when it comes to the system.
One argument is that it slows the game down too much and it ruins the “purity of the game”.
People make an example of Eduardo Vargas’ second goal and the length of time he had to wait to celebrate while the VAR gave it the green light for the goal to stand.
I say screw the celebrations! It’s more important to get the decisions right!
So as you can tell I’m definitely in the other camp, the one that thinks it’s long past the time where we needed technology involved in the game.
Referees are human. They are bound to make mistakes simply because the human eye cannot keep up with the speed of the game anymore.
In the PSL this season we have seen countless errors that have changed games.
Just one example to show you what I mean, the Golden Arrows versus Baroka game towards the end of the season.
Victor Gomes gave Baroka a dodgy penalty. They scored. He then disallowed the goal because of encroachment in the area.
The only good thing about that day is that most football lovers, myself included, now know the meaning of the word “encroachment”.
If the referee had the benefit of a replay or a different angle like we do, maybe those games would have ended differently.
I do think that the system needs work. I’m in favour of three referrals per team like they have in cricket.
And maybe automatic reviews for red cards or contentious issues in the build-up to goals.
Then we’ll find the balance between the flow of the game and getting the calls right more often than not.