All this handball angst. Football makes me laugh with its righteous indignation. Have we forgotten the Hand of God, Thierry Henry’s slight of arm, Joe Jordan’s audition for the Scottish Globetrotters against Wales?
Jordan still can’t bring himself to speak about his contribution to football’s handball infamy 43 years on. Diego Maradona elevated his 1986 slam dunk against Peter Shilton to an act of divinity. Henry moaned about the reaction he received when Leo Messi’s palmed special against Espanyol raised not a hint of outrage. Not a quibble about the offence itself.
There are countless examples of the cheating, duplicitous acts of footballers that brought us to this point. We would not be in this maddening handball pickle if referees and the officiating process had the respect of players and coaches.
Let’s be frank. There is more chance of Donald Trump paying his taxes than a footballer playing fair with referees, whether it be historic handballs or Aaron Connolly finding a way to collapse into small parts at the hint of a breath on his back in the Manchester United box. Sorry Aaron, it’s not fair to single you out. You are just the latest example of a problem that has darkened the heart of the professional game to the point of moral collapse.
It is self-evident that the application of VAR with regard to handball is unsatisfactory. The very process is necessarily flawed since it attempts to make objective a matter that in the less obvious cases still relies on subjectivity, ie the interpretation of the referee.
Offsides, goals and other disputes are ultimately measured to an acceptable conclusion. But again, football has arrived at this juncture to police the corrupted souls of players and to get decisions right. Refinement will come. But for now, dealing with mistakes honestly made is better than living with the consequences of cheating.
Imagine if the game were prepared to act sooner on the technical capacity available to it. Television viewers were alerted to Maradona’s sneaky blow in Mexico within seconds of the ball hitting the net. Tunisian referee Ali Bin Nasser claimed he was waiting for his Bulgarian linesman Bogdan Dotchev to raise his flag. Had he done so, you never know, England might have won a second World Cup. I know. Wishful thinking. Today Maradona would not be able to trade honour for glory in the same way.
Looking back at Jordan’s cynical fist does not feel any better today than it did at Anfield in 1977. “A handball if ever there was one,” opined Scottish commentator Archie McPherson, mangling his tenses as well as football’s ethical code. “The referee perfectly correct,” he continued, digging himself ever deeper into a profound wrong. If only French official Robert Wurst had Stockley Park in his ear, justice would have been served and Jordan allowed back into Wales.
Henry’s double handball and pass to William Gallas in Paris 11 years ago was a shameful transgression that would not have stood today. How many overly zealous VAR blunders would the Irish tolerate for one night of VAR in November 2009. This is not to deny frustrations involved only to point out that we are in a better place generally and to remember how we got here.
Overall VAR has had a positive impact on the game and on the lot of referees since it allows them a layer of protection they never had in the days when communication with fellow officials was not allowed and matches convulsed with the mob behaviour of players in a state of constant revolt.
Spare me the groans of coaches and players who for generations have warped the landscape with their cheating and their simulations, not to mention the relentless hounding of referees, creating an atmosphere in which mistakes were inevitable.
The appropriation of technology to expose the cheating and to improve decision-making was the necessary response. It’s a process. And we are better for it.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2EEyvub
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