Sadio Mané has only been a Bundesliga attraction for a few months, but Bayern Munich’s attacker has already featured iconic images of the season. For once, we are not talking about the new storm of the series champion, who combines the national competition in a nutshell on the way to the next title, but about another problem in German professional football that recurs weekend after weekend. In the 2-0 win against Wolfsburg on the second day of the game, Mané scored a goal from a suspected offside position, which was checked for validity by the video assistant, VAR for short. And so Mané stood in front of referee Harm Osmers and waited. And waited. And waited.
Mané cut a fine figure, smiling and putting his hands behind his back until his goal was correctly disallowed. Others were less reticent. On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the introduction of VAR and because of numerous controversial decisions, the pointed to polemical statements have recently increased. Bundesliga referee Patrick Ittrich summed it up like this: “It’s the third day of the game – and everyone’s going nuts.”
Despite all the criticism, VAR prevented more than 100 mistakes last season
But unlike the problem that Bayern always wins in the Bundesliga, there are obvious solutions for less dissatisfaction with the VAR. Unfortunately, getting rid of the so-called video evidence is not one of these solutions. Even if it would of course be nicest never to be interrupted or even corrected when celebrating a goal. But despite all the criticism, the VAR works too often for that – and thus minimizes the risk for every club of losing a lot of money because of an obviously wrong whistle. Last season, the DFB recorded eight missing interventions and six wrong decisions in a total of 116 interventions in its statistics. That means: 110 prevented errors.
And yet, even after five years, every step of the decision-making process is still controversial: When will the VAR intervene? What exactly is checked? How is it argued? With super slow motion? Even with still images that make every contact a foul? Why does it take so long? And after all, who really decides, the referee on the field, or the assistant in front of the screen?
The latter questions could probably be answered with more thorough explanations. At least the verified scenes should be visible on the stadium screens, so that the fan in the bend sees no less than the one in front of the television. There are also plans in the Premier League to post-release radio traffic between VAR and referees. This has long been common in the USA. If the referees are convinced of their work, there are no good arguments against it.
The “challenge” principle could solve the basic problem
However, the basic problem of when the VAR intervenes and when not cannot be solved with this. What is a “clear wrong decision” that justifies an intervention will always be controversial in a sport like football. Therefore, it is also obvious and has been under discussion for years that serious consideration should be given to the “challenge” principle, as is customary in the US sports leagues: the coaches could decide whether a referee’s decision should be checked by video assistance, limited to a certain number of objections per game. DFB innovation head Jochen Drees does not consider the idea to be absurd, he said recently – and referred to the responsibility of the world association Fifa.
If then possibly more coaches would put themselves in the referee’s position, inevitably dose their anger at wrong whistles and would have to weigh up themselves in a short time whether the striker, who may have had one foot offside, could really have blocked the goalkeeper’s view, and therefore them File an objection – then that might also have a nice side effect: a little more understanding for referees, of whom there have been fewer and fewer down to the district league in Germany for years.
Not everyone has to be as polite as Bayern’s Mané. But referee Ittrich is right: Not everyone has to go crazy at the same time.