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Has Video Refereeing Ruined The World Cup? (npr.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: This is the first time FIFA, soccer's governing body, has allowed video replay to be used to make penalty calls in a World Cup. And while fans of basketball and American football are used to the referees stopping the game to consult video footage, soccer purists say it's ruining everything. The major complaint is that it's making the matches much longer than the typical 90-minute games. Martin Rogers, a sports columnist for USA Today, says Video Assistant Referee (or VAR) is "slow, clunky and unpredictable." Over the phone from Russia, where he's reporting on the World Cup, he jokes, "I remember back in the day, when if a game kicked off at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you'd be all wrapped up by 4:45."
Rogers says this type of technology works well for American football and basketball. "When you look at the calls that are used for replay, in basketball for example, it's normally factual. It's based on, 'Did a player get a shot off before the clock expired?' It's easy. You know. It's black and white." But soccer, Rogers says, is different. He's referring to one of the most hated and beloved qualities of the game: the endless drama. It's a thespian sport.
Rogers says this type of technology works well for American football and basketball. "When you look at the calls that are used for replay, in basketball for example, it's normally factual. It's based on, 'Did a player get a shot off before the clock expired?' It's easy. You know. It's black and white." But soccer, Rogers says, is different. He's referring to one of the most hated and beloved qualities of the game: the endless drama. It's a thespian sport.
Not sure this is /. material, but I'll bite, as I occasionally watch football (sic), mostly national games like in the world cup or big CL games etc.
In any case, I thought that VAR should have come much sooner, as the unavailability of a replay is the excuse referees always had for bad result-altering decisions. In fact, on this world cup I saw that the problem was the opposite: currently the referree has to ASK for VAR. In one match for example, Sweden's attacker Berg should have won a penalty, but the referree was adamant it was not end did not ask for VAR. Well, he was wrong, and the procedure should have been such that the VAR room people should have told him themselves "eh, you know, don't be so sure about that". I am not a Sweeden fan, just one occasion I remember, there were a few more but not many. I'd also want video review to punish players who flop. Because maybe then they would stop flopping, which would lead to a much better game (they often stop trying to score a goal just to fake a foul/penalty).
Overall VAR helped deliver some tough calls and lead to a much more fair sport and it added a couple of minutes to the duration of each match, which is a completely idiotic reason to complain about. And there are many black/white calls in football (ball passing lines, offsides etc) and hopefully those will be the first to be handed off to some good AI/Machine Vision system to call, but harder things like penalty calls will take more time for that and VAR is not a perfect, but the best solution so far.
Why am I debating VAR on /. again? :)
PS calling it "soccer" means you are not in touch with the football world, as there is only one country that calls it that way (retaining the name "football" for a game played mostly by holding and throwing the ball), and they weren't even in the world cup. Yeah, OK, you might say it is not fair since he is an American reporter so what can he do, but then think about that he reports on the world cup and is bothered by the fact that the games don't finish in 1h 45m - Newsflash: THEY NEVER DID, we always had an unpredictable number of extra minutes which was never less than about 3-4 per game and sometimes went to over 10, way beyond the time VAR took (for most games it was like a minute).
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While there are increased delays, there were already delays. An extra 30ish seconds after the goal already went into the net, to see if it should be cancelled is not appreciably different than the arguing that is normal when a controversial call or non-call happens. At least now a ref can say shut up and I am going to look at the video with my own eyes.
As for real game stopping delays for reviewing general non-calls, they do not stop play for that. Rather the video is reviewed an the ref on the field is consulted once the next throw in or whatever break happens.