Video technology could determine who wins the World Cup

AT SOME POINT in the next few weeks, the destination of football’s World Cup will probably be decided by the application of video technology. This might not happen in the final itself, but along the way, a team that might have won could well be eliminated—or an otherwise beaten side saved—by a decision from the video assistant referee, or VAR. Indeed, in only the third minute of the first game of the tournament, between Qatar and Ecuador (pictured), an Ecuadorian goal was ruled out by VAR. (That ruling turned out not to be decisive: Ecuador went on to win 2-0.)

Football was relatively late to rely on the use of such technology, introducing VAR for club matches only in 2016 and at international level two years later. In tennis Wimbledon used the Cyclops system for service-line decisions as long ago as 1980 and the Hawk-Eye system began to be used in major tournaments for all line calls in 2006. America’s National Football League introduced a review system in 1986, abandoned it in 1991 and reintroduced it in 1999. Cricket formally introduced a system for reviewing umpires’ decisions in 2009.

The motivation for these systems is clear. Elite sport is a high-stakes affair and, where possible, officials’ errors should not affect the result. In tennis, it is extremely difficult for a line judge, standing several metres away, to decide whether a ball, which may have been hit at 150kph, has landed on the edge of the line or a few millimetres wide of it. Technology can do a much better job.

To be successful, any system must balance what might be dubbed the three Ps: proportionality, precision and punctuality. Football may be the sport in which proportionality is hardest to get right. When the players line up for a corner kick, for example, the jostling in the penalty area between forwards and defenders for the best position can resemble Greco-Roman wrestling. A strict referee might find something to penalise each time. But then every corner would result in a penalty or a free kick to the defending team. Referees, on the field and watching on video, allow some physical contact. The question is, how much is too much? Already, decisions in the World Cup, even with the help of VAR, have been irritatingly inconsistent.

Other sports try to deal with this problem by giving players and teams a limited right to challenge decisions. Understandably this prompts them to use such challenges at important moments. In football, only the officials decide whether to review an earlier decision and there may be dozens of such moments during the game. The VAR system supposedly limits itself to “clear and obvious errors” or “serious missed incidents”. But these can be hard to define—which brings us to the second P, precision.

Football is a simple game, with one complicated rule: offside. When a ball is passed, attacking players must have two defensive players, one of whom can be the goalkeeper, between them and the goal. (The rule was devised to deter what British schoolboys used to dub the “goal sneak” or “goalhanger”, who spends all his time lurking near the opponents’ goal.)

Judging offside requires a human official to simultaneously observe both the passer and the attacker when they may be 20 or 30 metres apart. Again technology is much better placed to do this. Ecuador’s goal against Qatar was disallowed because a player’s knee was too advanced. Only the cameras could be this precise. Arguably, that’s too precise. The purpose of the offside law is to stop attackers gaining an unfair advantage, which a stray knee or shoulder scarcely does. It may be better to rule attackers offside only if there is daylight between them and the defender.

In football, outfield players are not allowed to use their hands or arms to control the ball. But if a player kicks the ball from close range and it hits an opponent’s arm, then an exception is made. But how close is “close”? Some exceptions are also made if the contact is clearly accidental, but this requires the referee to judge whether or not the defending player is holding his arms in a “natural” position, or has placed them in the line of the ball. Such a decision must be subjective; technology only helps to the extent that it can slow the action down.

So absolute precision can never be achieved. And that is important for the last P, punctuality. Sensibly, some VAR checks are conducted while play continues, with the on-field referee notified if the technology has spotted something significant. Nevertheless, sometimes the clock is stopped, and the time taken to review crucial decisions (penalties and goals) can be substantial. This can frustrate the crowd, disrupts the rhythm of the game and can lead to long periods of “added time”.

Because absolute precision is often impossible, punctuality should take precedence. If it takes more than a minute to decide on a VAR review, then the decision was probably about right in the first place. A good deal of football’s charm comes from its free-flowing nature. When it comes to VAR, the best should not be made the enemy of the good. ■