“Are in a dead end”
For the Eintracht boss, partial abolition of the VAR is essential
October 29, 2023, 9:03 p.m
The boss of Eintracht Frankfurt, Axel Hellmann, has the faxes. For him, things can’t go on like this with the video assistant. After the Bundesliga game against Borussia Dortmund, he called for at least partial abolition of VAR. He also wants to make this known in the DFL.
Board spokesman Axel Hellmann from the Bundesliga soccer club Eintracht Frankfurt has spoken clearly about the video assistant (VAR) and is calling for it to be partially abolished. “I am firmly convinced that we are in a dead end with the VAR in interaction with the referees on the pitch,” said the 52-year-old on Sunday evening. He no longer believes “that this will make football better”; he sees “the danger that it will destroy football in the form we love it.”
Hellmann’s general settlement followed Hesse’s Bundesliga game against Borussia Dortmund (3:3), in which several controversial situations arose. Among other things, BVB goalkeeper Alexander Meyer hit Frankfurt’s Omar Marmoush on the foot in the penalty area. Referee Robert Schröder let the scene play out, looked at the images after a VAR note and, after a long review, stuck to his decision. In stoppage time, however, Dortmund wanted to be awarded a penalty because Hugo Larsson had pulled his opponent Nico Schlotterbeck’s jersey.
“Where is the added value of the VAR if in the end it doesn’t really make a decision that is made on the pitch better?” asked Hellmann: “We don’t make the referee on the pitch better, and we don’t make the VAR either better.” He was “a great friend” of the VAR, but now he has become “convinced that it is not effective or sensible”.
Hellmann, a member of the Executive Committee of the German Football League (DFL), would like to “reduce the VAR to essential decisions” in the future. He cited offside situations or goal line technology as examples. The more “authority” the referees have on the pitch, “the better they will make their decision in the situation,” said the Eintracht official.
Hellmann said he “doesn’t want to pretend now that the debate about what happens next hasn’t already taken place.” Hellmann said he “won’t have the clout to change something in the direction of FIFA. But we have to think about it.” He will “certainly raise the issue at one point or another” and in the DFL presidium.