José Sena Goulão / Lusa
UEFA refereeing chief Roberto Rosetti points the finger at slow-motion replays, and says “we need to talk about this at the end of the season”.
UEFA’s director of referees, Roberto Rosettiwarned that video-assisted arbitration is becoming too “microscopic” and fears that the use of technology has become diverted from your purpose original.
According to , VAR rarely leaves the headlines and has been the target of controversy in recent weeksfollowing a series of major incidents in the Premier League. In Portugal, the scenario is similar.
Rosetti made it clear that he was not commenting specifically on the implementation of VAR in England, but suggested that, generally speaking, it is guilty of excessive intervention.
“We forget a little, everywhere“, said the head of UEFA arbitration. “Eight years ago, I came to London and we discussed What does VAR mean?. We talk about clear errors, because technology works so well on factual decisions. In objective decisions, it’s fantastic“.
“Subjective assessment is more difficult“, notes Rosetti. “That’s why we started talking about clear and obvious errors: clear evidence. I believe we need to talk about this again in our meetings at the end of the season. We cannot go in this direction of microscopic VAR intervention. We love football the way it is.”
Rosetti criticized the excessive use of slow motion repetitions to diagnose infractions that may be relatively harmless in real time. “We call this slow motion“, he said, referring to a film editing machine from the 1920s. “When you see the situation in super-slow motion, you can find a lot.”
The VAR intervention rate in the Premier League from 0.15 per game for on-field reviews (and 0.27 including “factual reviews” that do not require referee interpretation) is the lowest in Europebut is widely accused of excessively thorough use.
In the Champions Leaguethe overall rate is 0.47.
Speaking after UEFA’s annual congress in Brussels, Rosetti said the media narratives played a role in encouraging its excessive use. “It was you who said that, not me“, he stated when asked if VAR is going too far.
“You are guilty in a waya, because they also pressed for more interventions. ‘Where is the VAR? Why doesn’t VAR intervene? Why is VAR not involved? What are the VARs doing?’ But now we need to be careful with that“, he concluded.
In January, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the body that draws up the laws of the game, supported plans for VAR to intervene, if necessary, in the game. corners and in seconds yellow cards misattributed.
