Thursday, November 4th, 2021
Joke red for Hummels
The VAR is completely embarrassed
By Stephan Uersfeld
Football in Germany has been fairer since the 2017/2018 season. The video assistant eliminates many wrong decisions. So the sales promise. But the red card for Mats Hummels in the game against Ajax shows again: The VAR only shifts the blame and robs football of the emotions.
Lukas Brud went into raptures. “The video evidence has fulfilled its claim to make football fairer,” said the executive director of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) the “kicker”. That was in February 2019. Almost three years later it can be said that the VAR did not make the games fairer, it destroyed football. The VAR only shifted the blame. Now the anger is no longer directed against the referee, but against something indefinite, against a person who no one sees, who no one can grasp. The advancing mechanization has stolen the heart of football.
The best example of this was presented by the team of referees around the English referee Michael Oliver. They let themselves be deceived by an Ajax player and gave the Dortmund team not only short-term losses of millions in the 1: 3 (1: 0) defeat, but also a mammoth task in the remaining games against Benfica Lisbon and Besiktas Istanbul.
The overwintering in the Champions League hangs in the balance and thus a season that has so far been problematic for Borussia Dortmund even without the influence of the referees. The injured, the goals conceded, the background noise of the transfer deals. BVB is threatened with the end of the Champions League and possibly they would have suffered a defeat on Wednesday even without the red card for Hummels. But this again showed the massive weaknesses of the supposedly fair VAR.
Hummels slides, Antony deceives
What happened? Borussia Dortmund started their fourth group game in a formidable manner after the 0: 4 at Ajax Amsterdam, despite a rump team. They had missed the best opportunities, but the game they shouldn’t be losing was under control. Until Michael Oliver changed the statics of the game and put Hummels off the pitch for a tackle at the center line. The Englishman, who was already noticed during the game between Switzerland and Italy in the quarter-finals of the European Championship with an over-hard red card, was fooled by Ajax-Brazilian Antony. He rolled over the field for what felt like minutes after the tackle that didn’t hit him, staged his pain and Oliver found the performance remarkable.
Hummel saw red, great excitement, of course. The VAR switched on. Great relief for the Dortmunders. Wouldn’t last. But had. Because the intervention threshold for the VAR in European games is very high, as ntv.de columnist Alex Feuerherdt explained during the game. “The high speed and the leg above the ground could have been the deciding factor for the non-intervention because of the associated danger, despite the hit pattern,” wrote the expert from Collina’s heirs, who also pointed out Antony’s feigned pain. An explanation for the failure to intervene, but no justification for the wrong decision by the referee team.
“I have no idea how you can give red as a referee at Champions League level. That is an absurd wrong decision for me. The referee decided the game today,” grumbled Mats Hummels after the game and followed up with Antony : “I would like to add one more point. The acting of my opponent shouldn’t be ignored, that was grossly unsporting. He’s a great footballer, now he just has to become an athlete.”
Why fans accept wrong decisions
There has always been unsportsmanlike conduct in football. Some were punished directly on the field, others like Andreas Möller’s legendary swallow against Karlsruhe only after the game. There have always been wrong decisions in football. They are part of the game like mistakes made by the players, like wrong tactical approaches by the coach. They are human and they drive entire stages out of their minds. But football has become more predictable and therefore less attractive on so many levels in recent years. Especially for those for whom a visit to the stadium was an escape from the world.
Now the stadium visitors are not only annoyed by a lack of competition, but also by the numerous interventions or even non-interventions by an inaccessible power outside the field of play. There are hundreds of slow-motion in front of the TV, in the stadium all you have to do is look at the scoreboard with scant information. A wrong decision by the referee will be accepted and possibly classified with cheerful “slider, slider” shouts in a somewhat objective manner.
The VAR, which should make football fairer, is also insulted in the stadium. The fans briefly sing “You are ruining our sport” and then proceed to the order of the day. The VAR is cold, intangible and therefore not part of the game. A bad referee on one day is a bad referee on that day. Wrong decisions are wrong decisions. But the promise to eliminate a large part of all wrong decisions through the incorruptible gaze of a video referee was wrong from the start. Offside decision, the question of whether the ball has crossed the goal line, yes, that can be clarified. Technology helps. In other situations, like the Dortmund game, it is simply a nuisance.
The solution is obvious
Now you don’t have to go as far as Lukas Podolski, who accused the VAR of drug use, to find out: The VAR has not only devalued the stadium visit, robbed football of direct emotions, but rather it has failed across the board. The promise of justice was never kept. The blame was shifted.
That’s the actual problem. A red card against Hummels, an unjustified one, could have been given earlier as well. That’s human. But if football abolishes humanity in order to create justice depending on some intervention thresholds – which the normal viewer can no longer understand because they differ from competition to competition – and this does not succeed, football has a massive problem. And he’s had that for a long time. “The games have become much fairer,” said Brud, the IFAB boss in February 2019. This statement does not stand up to a VAR check. It is not correct. “Take care of that with the VAR,” Hummels wrote late at night on Instagram. There can only be one solution. But it won’t come to that.