![]() There was often the rendition of a touchingly rude accompanying song, “You Don’t Know What You’re Doing,” during which everyone would point at the referee as he scampered about, trying to do an impossible job. By the second half, in response to a serious mistake, like giving a penalty to the visiting team, the chant would be deafening. Invariably, at some point in the first half of each game, a sleepy, ragged rendition of the chant “The ref-er-ee’s a wank-er” would rumble around the stadium. For about ten years, I used to go, religiously, to watch Arsenal, the North London team that I support. The last of these might be the truest of them all. English soccer might be stuffed to the rafters with Brazilian goalkeepers, Gabonese strikers, and Spanish coaches, but it also retains a connection to certain unalterable truths about the sport in this country: that soccer is played hard and fast, often in the rain and on the outskirts of deindustrialized towns, that the language in the grounds is interestingly appalling, and that the referee is a wanker. is the world’s biggest soccer league, by revenue, and has a fragile superiority complex to go with it. ![]() It added a bunch of drama at the Women’s World Cup, in France, this summer, when referees reviewed critical, nerve-shredding decisions on screens next to the pitch, before the action carried on.īut soccer in England is different, and V.A.R. in every game, and the system has been up and running-with some success-in the German, French, Italian, and Spanish leagues for more than a year. In 2017, Major League Soccer became the first league in the world to use V.A.R. When a goal is checked, the idea is that it shouldn’t take more than about thirty seconds. Fans in the stadium often have no idea that a review is underway. is supposed to be as unobtrusive as possible-a voice in the referee’s ear, spotting things that are suddenly obvious when they’re replayed on TV. Soccer should flow, without endless stoppages, so V.A.R. ![]() It’s a complicated affair, involving a separate referee and his or her assistant, sequestered in a room, watching the action from all of the available camera angles and checking on four matters: that goals are legitimate, with no fouls or players offside whether penalty kicks should be awarded that red-card offences aren’t missed by the on-pitch referee and that the referee doesn’t get players muddled up. ![]() is soccer’s first serious attempt to incorporate technology into the umpiring of the game, like Hawk-Eye, in tennis, or the replay system, in the N.F.L. In August, the English Premier League started using a video-assistant referee system (V.A.R.) during all its matches. ![]()
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