What football can learn from cricket

Controversies over decisions by the Referee in a fast moving game of football have been unavoidable. Players have come to blows and sometimes, dissatisfied with controversial decisions players have roughed up the Referee. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup England’s Frank Lampard was denied a goal against Germany while even earlier Maradona got away by handling the ball by saying it was the hand of God.

But VAR in the current World Cup has not been very successful so far.

• In a Group C game between Peru and Denmark on Saturday, the Referee had second thoughts after Christian Cueva appeared to have been fouled inside the D. he revised his decision to continue the game and instead asked for an opinion from the video replay. The replay led to the award of a penalty that Cueva missed. Denmark won the match 1-0.
• But in the same match, in the first half itself, Cueva had been tackled roughly by a Denmark defender. But this time the Referee chose not to refer the moment to the VAR and relied on his own judgment and decided in favour of playing on. The video replay, however, showed that Cueva had been fouled inside the penalty area.

“If the 45th minute tackle was a penalty, how was the earlier instance not one,” asked the Sony Ten 2 anchor in the mid-match show. “Mistakes are human, we cannot hold the referee responsible,” argued Indian Captain Sunil Chhetri on live television. “Then what is the point of having technology? And who decides when the technology is used,” the anchor asked again.

In the match between England and Tunisia on Monday night. While Tunisia was awarded a penalty by the on-field referee in the dying minutes of the first half, at least two incidents of clear fouls on England Captain Harry Kane in the Tunisian penalty area went unnoticed and unpunished, denying England of two clear penalties.

The controversies have continued because there is no clarity in the rules about who can ask for VAR and when. Current rules have left the choice to the VAR team and the on-field referee. But is there a need for improvement?

Football can learn from the DRS system prevalent in Cricket. The Decision Review System (DRS) also uses video technology to review on-field decisions. In DRS, both the teams are presented with two reviews in an inning in a test match and the respective captains can anytime ask the umpire to send his decision upstairs for rechecking. If the on-filed decision is overruled by the third umpire, the team does not lose any review but if the umpire’s decision is sustained, the team loses the review option each time. The umpires too are allowed to seek the DRS whenever in doubt.

In football too captains of both sides can be presented with one review each for both the halves of the play. If the VAR overturns the referee’s decision, the team will still retain its two options. But if the review supports the on-field referee’s decision then the team loses out on one of the two options.

The team-captains will then be cautious of using review at any instance as using it without conviction will mean losing the review for rest of the half and that may prove costly, as it has happened several times in cricket.