DCL, VAR, WTF! Sometimes one single incident is so absurd that it has the capacity to bring down an entire house of cards.And when Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin was handed a straight red card in Thursday’s FA Cup third-round clash with Crystal Palace, VAR might just have reached its breaking point.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin was sent off by VAR for this challenge on ThursdayCredit: Getty
Referee Chris Kavanagh was showed slow-motion footage when called over the the VAR screenCredit: AFP
Calvert-Lewin executed an excellent tackle on Palace’s Nathaniel Clyne, top-flight referee Chris Kavanagh correctly judged that the challenge was not even a foul and yet, 30 seconds later, he was sent to his monitor and advised to dismiss the England forward.
There was no ‘excessive force’ in the challenge, Calvert-Lewin was not ‘endangering an opponent’ and he actually won the ball with a neat piece of skill close to the Palace box.
Yet not just one but TWO Premier League referees, in the VAR hub at Stockley Park, decided Kavanagh had made a ‘clear and obvious error’.
Then the on-field ref — provoked by slow-motion replays — failed to trust his own judgment and refused to uphold his original decision.
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To add to this farce, VAR is in operation for FA Cup matches played at Premier League stadiums and not for those hosted by EFL clubs.
Yet for those games staged at top-flight clubs, such as Palace, ‘support VARs’ have also been appointed, meaning VAR Craig Pawson was assisted by Michael Salisbury.
This undermines the often-stated lie by VAR cheerleaders that ‘it is not the technology but the personnel’ which is to blame for the system’s disastrous application.
Because the fact is that the more human beings that are involved in any decision, the greater the capacity for human error.
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VAR must now be scrapped, says Dave KiddCredit: Reuters
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Too many referees spoil a football match. Now Palace v Everton was a stinker, which ended 0-0 despite Sean Dyche’s side being reduced to ten men.
And presumably Calvert-Lewin’s three-match ban for a straight red will be rescinded on appeal.
But while minimal harm was done, this was the clearest possible case of VAR not just failing to improve decision-making but making it actively worse.
The Luis Diaz offside decision which sentenced Liverpool to their only Premier League defeat of the season at Tottenham in October was more damaging and more ridiculous.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. Too many referees spoil a football match. Dave Kidd
But that was a catastrophic one-off failure of process from VAR Darren England, which led to an incorrect on-field decision being upheld.
The Calvert-Lewin incident was a glaring example of how slow-motion replays persuade highly experienced referees to disbelieve their own eyes.
And of how the procedure of a VAR sending a referee to his monitor is a charade, given that 99 per cent of the time, this leads to an on-field official overturning his decision.
Perhaps the Calvert-Lewin incident will lessen, or even end, the use of slo-mo replays.
But what we really need is for pundits and prominent journalists to stop parroting the phrase ‘VAR will never be scrapped’.
These are invariably people who never pay to attend matches and fail to fully comprehend how VAR interferes with the joyful spontaneity of football — a sport in which so many refereeing decisions are subjective, meaning the idea of absolute justice will always be impossible.
Why can’t VAR be scrapped?
And how is it helpful to keep saying ‘VAR will never be scrapped’, when most people want it scrapped and it absolutely could be scrapped.
Arguing against technology does not automatically make you a member of the Flat Earth Society howling at the moon.Dave Kidd
This is an extension of a dangerous ‘computer says no’ culture.
Just watch ITV1’s brilliant drama Mr Bates v The Post Office to understand the extraordinary scale of human misery caused by a faulty computer system — and by the inability of apparently sensible people to believe that technology can possibly be wrong.
Likewise, try to get some common sense out of Barclays Bank over their draconian mortgage policies.
Organisations like the Post Office and Barclays destroy people’s lives by following a ‘computer says no’ mantra.
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VAR only destroys football matches. But the principle is the same.
Until we realise that arguing against technology does not automatically make you a member of the Flat Earth Society howling at the moon, then we will never reach the blindingly obvious conclusion that VAR does not need to be reformed, it must be scrapped. More
