The Useless Video Assistant Referee

This year's Confederations Cup marks the first time FIFA is using video replay at a major tournament.  There's a separate video official, who can call down to the referee if they feel a play warrants a second look.  The referee then stops the game and checks the video, but it's up to his discretion and his discretion alone whether or not the play warrants anything additional.

With group play all but finished, we've already seen the VAR come into play a couple times.  And it's proven to be completely useless.  If this is what we have to look forward to at the World Cup, they might as well not even bother.

The first incident involving video review was the ugly fight during injury time of the Mexico-New Zealand game on Wednesday.  This got nasty pretty quickly, and I can see where the officials didn't catch everything that happened.  That's exactly what the video replay system is for.  Except the video replay was a complete failure.  Actually, scratch that.  It wasn't the video replay that was a complete failure.  It was the official who was a complete failure.

It's obvious on the video that multiple red cards should've been issued.  I counted at least two on each team (one for the Mexican guy that knocked the New Zealand player down to start the whole thing, one for the New Zealand guy who responded by putting him in a choke hold, another to the guy that body slammed the New Zealand player, and one for the New Zealand guy who headbutted someone).  There might've even been more than those four, as well as potentially some yellows (including one for the tackle on Mexico No. 5 that led to the whole melee).

So, after looking at the video, what does the lead referee decide to do?  Not a damn thing!  Several obvious red card offenses, and what does he give out?  Three yellows, two of which were for the original foul and the New Zealand player's reaction.  He watches the video, sees all of the same replays as everyone else, and determines nobody did anything wrong.  Seriously?!  And this guy is supposedly one of the best officials in the world?

To make matters worse, he completely killed the flow of the game with the stoppage.  The players were standing around not doing anything.  All they wanted to do was restart the game (which only had about a minute left).  But every time you thought they would resume play, he blew his whistle to track down another guy to give him a meaningless yellow card (while, again, letting the most egregious offenders go unpunished).

Instant replay, in all sports, is designed to correct obvious mistakes or be used as an aid for identification, etc.  People had been clamoring for its introduction into soccer for years, especially after some blatantly bad (and easily correctable) calls either cost teams World Cup berths (Ireland) or advancing in the World Cup (England).  So its implementation was welcomed by many, even if there were concerns that replay stoppages would cause too much of a disruption to the pace.

Next year's World Cup will be the first one that uses both goal line technology and instant replay.  The Confederations Cup was designed to be a test run so that the system operates as smoothly as possible when the games matter the most.  Well, if the group stage of the Confederations Cup is any indication, there are a lot of kinks that need to be worked out.  Because it's embarrassing how badly the referee handled the Mexico-New Zealand brawl.

There have been a few other uses of replay during the Confederations Cup, but in those situations I think the officials handled it properly.  Russia was somewhat controversially not awarded a penalty kick in its loss to Mexico, but that was a judgment call on the field, and I can see where the official didn't change his mind.  He at least went over and looked at it, but I wouldn't say he missed it--unlike the Mexico-New Zealand referee.

I also wonder what the purpose of the VAR is if the only thing they can do is suggest the referee take a look.  In baseball, the replay umpire is the one that makes the call.  Same in hockey.  In tennis, they show the replay on the screen in the stadium for everyone to see.  In football (the other kind), it's the referee's decision, but they only do a review if a coach challenges or the call comes from upstairs.

Maybe that's part of the solution.  If the replay official determines the play is worth taking a look at, he should be able to give the referee some input.  After all, he's the one who thought it should be reviewed in the first place.

Above all, the point of instant replay is getting it right.  And I think we can all agree that hasn't happened so far.  Hopefully next summer, they will.  Because you'd hate to see a team's World Cup ended because the official still got it wrong after looking at the replay.  The best teams in the world deserve better than that.