Rafa talking about VAR:
Referees need to take responsibility with VAR
A long time ago, when the subject of VAR was first raised, I was dubious. For disciplinary issues and cleaning up the game, I thought it could be perfect. Players will think twice about using their elbows or committing bad tackles if they know what they do will be checked out afterwards. I’m 100 per cent in favour of that.
What we’re seeing now is mistake after mistake and the problem is that too many people are analysing incidents. There is confusion about what to do or who is making decisions. The idea shouldn’t be to take those decisions away from referees, it should be about making it easier for them to decide, giving them more responsibility rather than less.
It’s too easy for referees or their assistants to stop making decisions because they’re worried about being wrong, to wait for VAR. Then you get the delays and the lack of clarity we’re seeing now. We have professional officials and they’re paid to take decisions, not to wait and see what another person sitting in an office somewhere thinks on their behalf.
This isn’t just my opinion. I was talking recently with Roberto Rosetti, UEFA’s chief refereeing officer, and he thinks the same — it’s about referees taking responsibility. If something is a doubt, a big doubt, then the referee should go to the sidelines, watch the incident back on a monitor and then decide. It would only be once or twice during the game. Let them use this information.
It’s important to get things right — winning or losing games can be worth millions and millions to clubs — and VAR is supposed to make things more fair, which is obviously a positive, but you have to find the balance. We shouldn’t be changing things so much that the whole spirit of football becomes different, that we take the emotion away from it.
That is the risk when every decision takes so long, when everything is checked. With the advent of new technology and the rollout of 5G, sending and analysing pictures should be pretty instantaneous — as with all new processes, everything becomes better over time — but I’m still not convinced that everything should be looked at.
With Dalian Yifang recently, we scored a goal on the counter-attack, we waited for the VAR check and it was disallowed. There was an offside in the middle of the pitch, a very close call, maybe a shoulder. That decision was correct and I’m sure our opponents were happy, but in the past, when there was any doubt, the attacking team was favoured, so there were more goals.
It is an interesting argument: does being right more often make football better as a sport? At the moment, VAR is not even getting things right, it is just passing decisions to people who are not in the stadiums. It is here to stay, I’m sure about that, but there is a lot of work to be done. When there is any doubt, the referee has to make the final decision. They have to have responsibility.
