Recent report from Football lawmakers as it is reported on BBC claims that VAR used in 804 competitive matches increased the accuracy of decisions that can be reviewed to almost 99%. Indeed, as it’s reported in the 8% of matches the video assistant referee had a significant effect on the final result of the game while the time lost was less than 1% of the overall playing time.
Contrary to IFAB’s recent study, football fans and officials remains to be quite sceptical on the opportunity of introducing the VAR worried about the impact on the beautiful game.
On the other side, rugby has experienced all this before and the former international referee Ed Morison speaking to Betway Insider supports his stance to introduce the TMO in professional matches so early. “All of us are slow to accept change in all walks of life. In rugby, some people accepted professionalism and what it meant, whereas I struggled with it. I realise now that I was probably quite foolish. Now we have a professional game that everybody buys into and that’s great. And that’s exactly what will happen with the video replay system.”
Adding that: “We had a problem at the beginning in rugby where the crowd got irritable. The first game that was played in the Premiership with the TMO, I think there were something like 10 referrals. The crowd were slow hand-clapping and all hell was let loose about the amount of time it was taking” but nowadays “More big decisions are made correctly now than ever in the history of the game. There are the odd occasions, but they are very odd.”
In this line, Chairman of the World Rugby Match Officials Selection Committee John Jeffrey said that “The TMO is a part of the match official team and the fantastic technology available is a tool to be used in the making of key decisions during matches. The TMO process is used to make sure the correct calls are made to protect the integrity of the game”.
“It’s worth noting that just 28 per cent of stoppage time in the opening match of this Rugby World Cup was taken up by the TMO process but we are committed to reducing that time further while not compromising on accuracy. As such, all involved – referees, TMOs, technicians and television producers – are working together to achieve that” Jeffrey says.
YouTube Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUc0pxqK6zE
