The legendary Aldo Biscardi invoked her weekly, entertained all Italian sportsmen using the moviola in the field, forgetting that perhaps, canceling all possible arbitrary errors, would mean the end of the controversy and therefore of transmissions like his ... The good Aldo in a certain sense though he had seen us long, the moviola on the field, now called VAR (Video Assistant Referee), instead of extinguishing the controversy is being fueled.
The VAR, strictly male, is nothing more than a support to the race director on obvious situations that are out of control or misdiagnosed. This support, however, is not bare and raw technology to provide it, as is the case for Goal Line Technology, but a pair of directors who are in the lead and who are deputies to look at the images and detect any problems in the decisions of the race director , who is still the only one to be able to take the final decision, helping himself with the ability to review the field images. It is good to remember that VAR applies only to goals, rigors, expulsions or personal exchanges for disciplinary action.
Specifically, the procedure works in this way: the conductor requests the intervention of the VAR or is informed by the VAR that a decision must be reviewed; VAR judges, in turn, refer to the episode and inform the race director, who may decide whether or not to revisit it on the field before making final decision. All this should take place within two to three minutes to avoid the weight of the game.
In this beginning of the season we have witnessed the use of this novelty in a very bizarre way, without a precise protocol. He then moved from a point of use, albeit with a small off-shore off-scoring, in Genoa-Juventus, to the disaster of Fiorentina-Atalanta, arbitrated by the Pairetto "son of art", where the hosts were denied two rigors evident. Fiorentina already penalized on the first day at San Siro against Inter, when Tagliavento decided not to go back to field field incident in the interim area, where Simeone was hooked by Miranda; Inter also benefited from communication error (!?!) Between Irrati and referee VAR Orsato at the Olimpico against Rome for the contact between Perotti and Skriniar, who would probably have marked the race differently. Turin also has to be recalled when he was in the lead, but due to a whistle of Massa's referee, a regular goal was canceled that would give him three points without the possibility of using VAR as the protocol does not envisage using it for offside positions if it does not result from a goal out of the offside position ... in short, an intersection understood only by the staff of the Italian Association of Referees.
In fact, this technology is not technology, but probably it could not be otherwise, as we have not arrived yet, and maybe we will never (fortunately add) to an artificial intelligence level that can bring the computer to totally replace the man in decisions, however, of some complexity. It can certainly improve the protocol by forcing the race director to always review a doubt on the field, meanwhile to reiterate his role and to avoid deciding as a VAR referee he is in the lead (not covered by the Rules ... ) in order to avoid increasing the discretionary discretion in the decision, which would be multiplied by three, but above all to avoid creating controversy and doubts about the proper functioning of the entire arbitration class.
Undoubtedly, there is a need for patience and cooperation from all players in the football world for this instrument to be successful, but at the same time opening up from the arbitrary world to learn from the many trite mistakes made to make VAR produce the desired effect, that is, the drastic decline in arbitration and consequent compliance of the results with what is seen in the field.
Leopoldo Belmonte
Photo: Gazzetta dello Sport
