WELL Boris is still in Downing Street and the world hasn’t fallen apart – yet – but at least we can forget politics and get to grips with the biggest story in Scottish football, namely the possible introduction of Video Assistant Referees into the Scottish game.
Regular readers will know I have been calling for VAR of some kind for more than three years, but I was flummoxed to read the Daily Mail yesterday and see SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell suggest it could happen next year.
All credit to the journalist who got the story, but I don’t know who advised Maxwell on doing this interview, as giving such a major announcement as an exclusive to the Daily Mail won’t exactly persuade other sports writers to fall into whatever line the SFA eventually takes.
Being the cussed type, however, I am not offended and can only say to Maxwell bring it on, and the sooner the better.
Yes there will be those who say Maxwell is only reacting because Rangers lost the League Cup Final to an offside goal, though that was at least debatable, and I am pretty certain VAR is going to happen eventually because Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts and the top referees and Premiership managers all want it.
Maxwell told the Mail that “because of the way England has implemented VAR and the focus received it has led to fewer people pushing for it in Scotland.
“But we have had a couple of high profile incidents recently that would have been corrected, you might have thought.”
So it WAS about the cup final ... he went on: “And in the early part of 2020 we need to be going to Scottish football and saying, ‘there is the cost guys, do you want to do it or not?’
“That is the way it’s going to have to be because when you look at all the other countries that have it, the association will pay for the implementation costs and the training of match officials.”
Most estimates are that it will cost £1 million to introduce VAR to the Premiership, and Maxwell is at least challenging the clubs to think about the costs as it will come out of the prize money pot – which is going to increase anyway as a result of the new broadcasting deal.
So now is precisely the time to have this debate, not least because over a year ago, Maxwell made much the same points and progress since then has been slower than a Greenland glacier melting.
It will not be easy, as the English experience and indeed the Scottish Women’s team’s experience at the World Cup showed.
There will be a necessity for more referees and more training, but the solution is to have a bank of full-time professional referees who can recruit and train young referees for the future. Ask the Scottish Rugby Union what happens when you can’t find decent referees – another World Cup without a Scottish ref, though to be fair the SRU is putting much more resources into referee training.
I actually think we have some decent football refs at the moment, though there is still too much inconsistency and not enough use of assistant referees.
VAR is not a cure for refereeing mistakes, but it will help referees and hopefully end the scourge of the game – diving and cheating behind a referee’s back.
It is a moral issue, too. Is it right that mistakes go uncorrected when they can be? Is it right that the chancers and cheats can get away with footballing murder and we have to hope they get pulled up by the SFA days after the event instead of right there and then? Is it right or wrong to have a system that can help dispense justice?
READ MORE: It isn't VAR which is the problem in football, it's the new rules
Either all of us – players, managers, media and fans – agree to go back to the days when the referee’s word was law even when he was wrong and especially when he was wrong, and there is no more onfield argument and no criticism after the game, with the fans of all teams graciously accepting refereeing errors, or we have VAR and at least cut out some of the arguments.
As we have seen in England, it will take many, many months to introduce VAR and even then mistakes will be made, but the stakes are now too high in the professional game for us not to have VAR.
When a glaring error by a referee can stand uncorrected and a club consequently loses a small fortune, it is long since past the day when VAR should be here. There will be those who argue that Scottish football is too wee, too poor and too stupid to have VAR but you will not be surprised that I heartily disagree with such naysayers.
It’s happening now around the football world, and soon it will be extended to tournaments instead of just parts of them, so why not have Scotland to the fore in this revolution rather than playing catch up after the rest of the leagues and associations have introduced it.
I know there are sports where video and computer technology has come to dominate the scene – the cricket World Cup and top flight tennis come to mind – but VAR can actually improve a sport and if Scottish football does not get on board VAR I fear we will be left behind.
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