Karren Brady: VAR has been bad enough, but the government’s new do-gooder regulator will really hamper elite football
FOOTBALL is falling foul of so much over-regulation it reminds you of the old workers’ axiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
As if VAR hasn’t been controversial enough, the imminent government-appointed football regulator looks set to be another busybody do-gooder that will end up hampering the sport at its highest level.
Let’s start with VAR, the sport’s unpredictable instrument of judgment.
Mikel Arteta’s outburst last week was aimed at the VAR operators who agreed with the referee that Anthony Gordon’s winning goal for Arsenal after an aerial scramble should stand.
Even though the human microscopes in the VAR hub eventually voted against Arsenal, the length of the delay was an indication of doubt rather than certainty.
Which says two things to me. First, in many cases, intent is near-impossible to ascertain.
Second, VAR operators are regularly asking for an interruption themselves rather than accepting that the ref’s decision should be final.
Little wonder VAR is now so disliked.
It is also impersonal — based somewhere in West London — while fans, players, managers, and TV pundits all know their equipment is fairly basic… a generation or two short of AI.
Two-dimensional TV is Putin-esque — sometimes we can’t believe what we think we see.
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Because of this, no verdict can ever be relied on as unimpeachable.
Whatever the angry Arteta thought last Saturday at St James’ Park, had the decisions gone the other way Newcastle manager Eddie Howe would have complained — albeit not so noisily.
Simply, it was impossible in the few minutes available for VAR to undo the tangle of limbs that made up the full incident.
The truth is that ref Stuart Attwell had a better view of the incident than a whole crew of spotters checking angles on flat screens.
Overall it was the half-blind with pictures half-leading the half-blind with a whistle. Yes, half-equipped.
This technical interference didn’t impress Wolves who have claimed at least four incorrect referee-VAR decisions so far this season — two of them so poor that the refs were dropped to the Championship for a match.
Wolves manager Gary O’Neil calculates those errors have cost his team SIX points.
We know what happens when ministers appoint an overseer-cum-bureaucrat-cum-pal to such responsibility
Karren Brady
A more excitable man would have reacted with some colourful vocabulary.
Ange Postecoglou, too, is measured in his post-match assessments.
Many people will wonder whether his Spurs team’s 4-1 home defeat by Chelsea was a sign of things to come with NINE incidents having been checked by VAR.
Postecoglou said: “That utopia where there are no wrong decisions in the game will never exist. It’s our own fault as we complain about decisions every week.”
Just as referees’ authority is being undermined, the introduction of a football regulator begs the question as to what has happened to the alleged authority of the FA?
Football’s governing body is being stripped to lesser duties by our politicians and we know what happens when ministers appoint an overseer-cum-bureaucrat-cum-pal to such responsibility.
The power, success and wealth of the Premier League is envied by our lesser leagues and — more to the point — around the world.
While it is right that we should spread some of our money to the EFL and deeper, the Prem is a success story.
The big question for the EFL is a pretty straightforward one.
If the regulator — as read out by the King last week — is said to “safeguard the future of football clubs for the benefit of communities and fans” why are there no restrictions on what the EFL clubs can do with the money that flows down to ensure it benefits communities and fans?
The implication of the need for a regulator is that football and the FA are in a mess, when in fact the opposite is true.
They say, no pain is unbearable — except that of regret.
I’m sure the decision to have a regulator will end up as one we regret.
It is such a short word and yet it stretches forever.