Proposal for the video ref

As you know by now, I'm all for video help in football.

Arguing that it would be useful, fair and badly needed is knocking at open doors.
However, to my knowledge, the heaviest argument against it is that it would disrupt the flow of the game, and since the beauty of football relies much on its free-flowing style (which I certainly agree with) it cannot be done practically. This is a problem that definitely needs to be addressed.

However, I believe it can be done without disrupting the flow (too much), while at the same time getting a substantial improvement in officiating quality. Here's how:

Play is never stopped (until an offense is found), video review is done simultaneously by an off-field ref, or rather team of refs, assisted by the best possible real-time / replay video evidence. When offenses are determined, they signal to the field ref to stop play. The video refs are competent (of course) and organized such that they can handle 3 - 4 separate incidents simultaneously if need be (that is, if more incidents occur before the previous ones are completely decided).

The field ref never makes decisions, but rather communicates his opinion to the team of video refs; they make the decisions.

One problem is when a goal is scored while a decision is being made. For instance a penalty call is analyzed, which may take 1 - 2 minutes, and in the meantime (since play continues until the offense is determined) it may happen that a goal (maybe even more) is scored at any of the ends.
For one thing, this won't happen very often. I imagine there will be much fewer such cases than there are now wrongly awarded or un-awarded penalties. But when they happen, I'd suggest (as a starting point, I'm not sure it is the best way) that if play hasn't stopped until the goal was scored, it be disallowed, if it has stopped and resumed, then the goal will count since it is practically another run of play. In any case, even when a goal is disallowed as above, the minutes played count for the total time of play.

Goal-line situations are another matter and should be dealt with by special technology, as even the governing bodies admit. Maybe even off-side calls, in the near future. Until then they can be decided by the video refs.

This would likely be pretty costly, at least at begin, maybe with time technology will improve and get more affordable. To reduce costs, I would suggest:
1. Limit things only to critical decisions such as penalties, plus off-side calls and offenses in situations that are likely to result in goals (such as attacker has the ball with nobody but the keeper to beat). Correcting just these would be easier and would result in substantial improvement. Then with time things might be extended.
2. I'd like to see this as soon as possible applied at least for the Champs League and World Cup, to begin with. Besides, these are cup-like tournaments where ref errors matter more than in league tournaments. With time and with experience, as well as technology advances, it might become more wide-spread. But hey, if wealthy leagues like the Premiership feel it's worth doing it as well, they should.


FF



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