Why Video Assistant Referee is the revelation of the World Cup in Russia

Regardless of what happens between now and the end of the 2018 Fifa World Cup, the most significant player of the tournament has already made his indelible mark. Step forward, Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

The VAR has done to world football what Mpesa did to Kenyans. It has changed life forever. It is a bloodless revolution after which there is no turning back.

The only question that remains is how you were operating before. The future is here. Of course, it will take long before the technology gains widespread use in poor countries.

As of this writing (after the Nigeria vs Iceland match), 12 penalties have been awarded in Russia in a tournament that has just started and with some teams, like favourites Brazil and Germany, having played just one match so far.

During the third day of the contest alone, the referee pointed to the spot an almost maddening five times. Contrast this with what happened in the last World Cup in 2014.

A paltry 13 penalties were awarded during the whole tournament!

All penalties in Russia so far had initially been denied and the referees only changed their minds after reviewing videos of the incidents.

What this means is that before the introduction of VAR, referees have always chosen to err on the side of caution - and with good reason.

A penalty in football is nearly always a game changer. It could restore a dead team back to life and win a match for it.

It is also the ultimate decider: when a winner must be found because a draw won’t do, Fifa’s rules of the game prescribe a penalty shoot-out.

Five are awarded to each side and if there is still a tie, the competition goes into sudden death where each side is allowed one shot at goal and the one that fluffs its chance loses.

This situation has resulted in some teams that dominated the largest slices of play sometimes ending up with the short end of the stick.

Penalty shoot-outs have often been described as lotteries because of their unpredictability. They have also been likened to democracy as the least worst of all the options available.

It is understandable, therefore, that before making a penalty call, referees have always made a point of being double sure.

But as the tournament in Russia has already proven, this has left quite a bit of injustice in its wake.

Legitimate penalties have been denied because of official reticence. And this is not the only area where injustices have occurred.

The VAR is coming 52 years later than when it was first seriously needed. In the 1966 World Cup final held in London’s Wembley Stadium, England’s Geoff Hurst fired a shot that bounced off the cross bar into the ground and back into play to score his country’s second goal against the then West Germany.

The Germans said the ball never crossed the line.

But the goal stood and to this day, the mystery has never been resolved.

England went on to win the match and the World Cup, defeating their infinitely more successful rivals 4-2.

In the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the fortunes were reversed.

England’s Frank Lampard crashed the bar on the crossbar and beyond the goal line before ricocheting back into play.

This time, advanced television replay left no one in any doubt that it was a goal. But the referee played safe and denied it. At that time, Germany were leading 2-1 and an England equalizer might have changed the outcome of the game. Germany proceeded to win 4-1. For them, justice had finally been done after a 44-year wait.

That was the incident that finally convinced the conservative Fifa to have a re-think.

Evolving changes in the game, not least the speed at which games were now taking place, made it mandatory to innovate.

In an illustration of the power a Fifa president wields, Sepp Blatter, then the chief said memorably: “I have to say ‘thank you Lampard’. I was completely down in South Africa when I saw that. It really shocked me, it took me a day to react. It happened again in Ukraine, and Ukraine can still not believe it now.”

In the years that followed, a methodical introduction of technology was made in the game.

From the outset, Fifa made it clear that the referee was not up for replacement. Whatever the outcome of their experiments, technology was only going to assist the referee and not to supplant him.

This has been achieved completely. The VAR is used only in match changing situations such as awarding of goals, penalty decisions, send-offs and cases of mistaken identity.

In allowing the introduction of technology in the game, Blatter had decreed: “Other than the goal-line technology, football must preserve its human face.”
This is as it should be. What is certain is that up to and including the final of World Cup 2018, we are going to see action like we have never seen before.

There will be a record number of penalties and disputes about disallowed goals because the referee couldn’t be sure about the ball crossing the line are now history.

Those deserving red cards will now also get their just deserts. This is a whole new ball game.

Though not all the time, World Cups throw in something new every once in a while. The 1954 event was the first to be televised, the 1966 was the first to be commercially marketed complete with an official mascot and the 1970 one saw the introduction of yellow and red cards. In 2018, we have VAR.

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Having talked about an assistant referee of the electronic variety, let’s turn our attention to one assistant referee of the human kind because we have an interest in his sorry fortunes.

The video of our Aden Marwa receiving a “gift” from a Ghanaian journalist disguised as a football official filled me with disgust for several reasons. The whole thing should never have happened.

The first reason for my disgust is that the video was shot in January 2018 during the African Nations Championships in Morocco but only aired in June on the eve of the World Cup.

If the purpose of the story was to serve the public interest, it should have been aired immediately to stop Marwa from doing further harm to the game. As it were, it was primed to take advantage of the massive viewership of the World Cup.

The motive was thus commercial gain and nothing altruistic.

The second reason was that the video did not show the most important evidence we needed to toss Marwa into the dustbin of football refereeing - that is him soliciting a bribe.

It doesn’t air the voice of the giver responding or even commenting on the solicitation. It is so annoyingly lopsided that it is a wonder that the premier news organization of the world, the BBC, somehow saw it fit to air it.

The third reason has to do with the second. It is wrong to induce somebody to commit a crime and then accuse him of committing it.

It is prohibited in journalism and I believe in other areas of law as well. It is called entrapment.

In this situation, the reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas, led Marwa into a situation where the referee, left to himself, wouldn’t have got himself into.

The reporter manufactured a story and had it aired as if it existed before. By any measure this was malice aforethought.

The fourth reason is that until this far, there has not been even a suspicion that Marwa is a corrupt official.

In fact, he is Kenya’s pre-imminent referee. The activities of Anas were thus purely a fishing expedition perhaps taking advantage of Kenya’s horrific reputation as a major corruption hub of the world.

Again, this is wrong.

A man’s career is probably now in ruins and yet before Anas, nobody in a decades-long career had publicly stepped forward to accuse Marwa of corruption.
The fifth and last reason has to do with Marwa himself. Here, it is useful to quote the Fifa Code of Ethics with regard to giving and receiving gifts. It is in Article 20 and says this:

“Persons bound by this Code may only offer or accept gifts or other benefits to and from persons within or outside Fifa, or in conjunction with intermediaries or related parties as defined in this Code, which

a) have symbolic or trivial value;

b) exclude any influence for the execution or omission of an act that is related to their official activities or falls within their discretion;

c) are not contrary to their duties;

d) do not create any undue pecuniary or other advantage and

e) do not create a conflict of interest. Any gifts or other benefits not meeting all of these criteria are prohibited.

2. If in doubt, gifts shall not be offered or accepted. In all cases, persons bound by this Code shall not offer to or accept from anyone within or outside Fifa cash in any amount or form.

4. Persons bound by this Code must refrain from any activity or behaviour that might give rise to the appearance or suspicion of improper conduct as described in the foregoing sections, or any attempt thereof.”

Dear Aden Marwa, you can see from this that you are held to a standard equal to that of Caesar’s wife.

Why did you allow himself to get himself mixed up, in a manner of speaking, with the people of this world?

To feather their nests, they can do anything, including trampling underfoot all the ethics in the book.

Even if they offered you double the handful of millions you would have earned in Russia, would it have been worth it? Why did you did you accept those peanuts? Why did you forget this code? You had it all going for you. What happened? And…why!