Chronic. “We are extremely satisfied with the standards of arbitration observed at the Euro. “ By awarding his troops a commendation at the end of the group stage, Roberto Rosetti, chairman of the UEFA referees committee, sidestepped a crucial question: what about the revolution brought by video arbitration?
Have the referees of the competition found the “good settings”, those thanks to which video assistance would cease to be “a good tool badly used”, capable of causing controversy which it was supposed to put an end to? What costs should be compared with the benefit of corrected errors?
From the Russian World Cup in 2018, accidental “hands”, like that of Croatian Ivan Perisic in the final against France, were sanctioned almost systematically, regardless of intentionality, yet enshrined in Law 12 of football . The competition had therefore recorded a historic record of 29 penalties (the previous one was 18).
As the images proved to be of little use in judging this deliberate nature and only established the existence of contact, detection had replaced interpretation. The outcome of PSG-Manchester United, in March 2019, testified to this: a penalty was awarded for a hand of Presnel Kimpembe … from the back on a shot not on target.
In the spring of 2019, the International football association board (IFAB), usually less adventurous, reformulated the rule in order to conform it to these new uses. On the grounds of “clarifying”, the body had added criteria and complexity while cutting back on the notion of intentionality. Thus, an arm above the shoulder was therefore an offense.
Penalties fallen from the sky
“The VAR [video assistant referee – « assistance vidéo à l’arbitrage », en français] obliges to rewrite the texts and to detail everything therein, leading to an unnatural settlement… and against history, since it no longer has anything to do with its initial objectives ”, regrets Tony Chapron, former international referee. The IFAB finally backtracked with a new “clarification” for the 2021-2022 season (applied from this Euro).
It is reiterated that the slightest contact is not necessarily punishable, and that it must be estimated according to the position – “natural” or not – of the player. This return to interpretation and a more permissive design was illustrated from the opening match, when two Italian centers affected by Turkish arms did not have any consequences.
“Two or twenty centimeters, there is no small or large offside,” said Pierluigi Collina, president of the FIFA referees committee, in 2019
Penalty inflation has not been stopped, however: they are fifteen to have been awarded at the end of the round of 16, or one every three games. “We benefit from more precision to detect faults in the penalty area”, congratulated Roberto Rosetti. Penalties fall, sometimes from the sky.
This panoptic logic is even less called into question by the centimetric measure of offside, which leads to canceling goals for a toe or a kneecap – again in contradiction with the purpose of the rule (what undue advantage the attacker takes on the defenders, in such a case?).
“Two or twenty centimeters, there is no small or large offside”, ruled Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA referees committee, in 2019. By claiming “100% accuracy”, his UEFA counterpart is just as categorical today: “We can consider that offside is no longer a problem for us. “
This conception – hated in England, accepted in Italy – pays little attention to the questionable precision of the still image. “We measure to the millimeter at the finish, but not at the start of the ball, all that 35 meters from the goals. Because of the VAR, we braced ourselves on the letter to the detriment of the spirit ”, insists Tony Chapron.
Unsolvable dilemmas
A dozen scorers had to swallow their happiness, and this is another tribute to pay: the achievement of the instantaneousness of the goal and the emotions it provides. In fear of invalidation, this joy becomes conditional, and virtual goals multiply.
The desire to limit interventions (“A minimum of interference for a maximum of benefits”, assured UEFA) is sensitive during this Euro, with, according to official figures, an average of five recourse to VAR per match, against seven during the 2018 World Cup. to the edge of the field screen only five times, so far.
Despite the desire to speed up decisions (in particular by assigning one of the video assistants to only offside), we do not escape long waits: nearly four minutes, on June 17, in the hand of a player from the North Macedonian wall on a Ukrainian free kick and the execution of the penalty, ditto for the validation, on June 26, of Martin Braithwaite’s goal at the end of Denmark – Wales.
The supporters of each team can voice their complaints. Those of the Blues, for example, were able to deplore, during France-Germany, on June 15, the absence of recourse and sanction against Robin Gosens after the shock which opposed him to Benjamin Pavard, and the release granted to Mats Hummels for his tackle on Kylian Mbappé in the area.
It is true that video arbitration poses insoluble dilemmas: mechanical application of rules against room for interpretation, extensive use (to the detriment of rhythm) against minimal interventions (by tolerating “errors” which become all the more unbearable).
Arbitrate video arbitration
“FIFA’s watchword was to “revitalize football”. However, she authorized VAR, which has the opposite effects ”, notes the researcher Ludovic Tenèze, author of VAR? The lark mirror (Panthéon, 2021, 304 pages, € 20.90). To compensate perhaps, the referees preferred to “let play” in this month of June (at the risk of exposing the players to injuries).
This Euro presents a positive provisional balance sheet in the delicate quest for the “settings” most favorable to the fluidity and fairness of the game.
The number of fouls whistled has indeed reached a historic low: 22.4 per game – a figure which has been falling continuously since the 2012 edition – while the average number of yellow cards per game fell from 3.6 in 2016 to 2 , 7.
With an effective playing time estimated at 64% for the group stage (up almost two and a half minutes compared to 2016) and in the absence of a major arbitral scandal, this Euro presents a positive provisional record in the delicate quest the most favorable “settings” for the fluidity and fairness of the game.
The illusion that video refereeing would put an end to the controversies that have been shattered, the time has come for pragmatism and the fight against undesirable effects that are still hidden: when UEFA asserts that the VAR “Help the game without changing it”, she expresses wishful thinking.
“When you have good referees, you don’t need the VAR”, Tony Chapron concludes by emphasizing the quality and consistency of the European elite. At least this is obvious: the better the referees, the less recourse to VAR – and both the game and the show are all the better for it.
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