Controversy in Sports

Controversy in Sports

 It is usually inevitable that there will be human error, and it plays a huge factor in sports. Mistakes will be made, passes will be dropped, and open shots can be missed. However, nothing is usually as infuriating for spectators as when controversial decisions are made, or circumstances occur which are so queer that no one is sure how the moment will be resolved (Rapp, 2011). Particularly in football, VAR or Video Assistant Referees has become a controversial topic because of the contradictory outcomes from the video assistant referees.

Video assistant referee refers to a match official in football association that reviews decisions that are made by the principal referee. Following extensive experimentation in a plethora of major competitions, the International Football Association initially introduced VAR into the game’s laws in 2018. It primarily operated under the philosophy of ‘maximum benefit and minimum interference,’ and its primary purpose was to provide a correction means for errors that are clear and obvious as well as missed serious incidences. In particular, the VAR can review four categories of decisions, which include mistaken identity, direct red card, penalty/no penalty, and goal/no goal. In this manner, the VAR had been introduced into football in a bid to decrease or eliminate the errors that are made by the referees. In each premier league game, the VAR referees usually watch the television feeds of the game in a bid to check decisions that are potentially contentious. They use replays to view controversial incidents from several camera angles and via the reconstruction of the ball or player movement to ascertain whether a goal was scored or whether a player was onside or offside.

Although the VAR was supposed to resolve the argumentative issues that may affect the game, it has done the total opposite as it has generated great discord (Macinnes, 2019). It is tempting to dismiss the VAR controversy as a narrative of interest only to football fans, but in a broader sense, it aids in illuminating the human relationship to technology, at an instance when technology, particularly AI, is beginning to affect several facets of our lives (Malik, 2019). In many areas, it is apparent that we expect human judgments to be error-prone, and thus technology is brought on to help make better and more objective solutions.

The primary source of the problem in this is that what entails a clear and obvious error in itself, is a call for judgment. Most of the controversies have stemmed from the disagreement of fans with the decisions that are made by the VAR. For instance, they disagree with VAR overturning some decisions that they deem to be right, while also ignoring some referee decisions, which they think is flawed. In lieu of the furry from the fans being directed to the referee, it is now being directed to both the VAR and the on-field referee.

The first video referral in the history of football happened in the world cup in the Group B opener between Portugal and Spain. In the 24^th minute, the Spanish striker clattered against the Portuguese defender by elbowing him in the face. This is usually considered a great foul and could lead to a direct dismissal from the game. However, the referee failed to notice this incident, and as a result, a goal was scored. As Spain celebrated the goal, the referee sought advice from the VAR using the headset as a mode of communication by asking if any incident had occurred amid the buildup to the goal. The VAR, who was situated in the video operations room, replied that all was fine and that there was no need for concerns. This was highly controversial as the goal was supposed to be overruled, and the player penalized for his foul actions.

VAR has been compared to Brexit (Evans, 2019). The majority of individuals initially wanted it, but they fail to understand how it might affect the game or how it would be implemented into the game. Individuals then realized that it was not working, and everyone is confused about the direction to be taken. Technology was never going to be a solution for the problems within the game, but it just shifted the nature of the controversy over the decisions that were made by the referees (Evans, 2019). What was perceived as ‘objective’ are usually problematic. For instance, when the offside rule is analyzed, it has become more intricate over the recent years, but in quintessence, it says that an individual is offside if any portion of his/her body is closer to the goal of the opponent than both the second-last individual and the ball itself. This rule was introduced in a bid to eliminate unfair advantage gained by a player who otherwise decides to ignore the game and go near the goal and wait for the ball to come to him/her. VAR ignores this foundation of the rule, and the technology even rules the smallest suggestion of infringement as offside. There can even be offside that are as minute as millimeter differences that have generated uproar from the football community as well as sports in general. This, in conjunction with time consumption, spoils the fun of the game and makes it more controversial (Stone, 2019).

VAR thus teaches us about technology’s greater context. First, it shows us that human judgment is indispensable (Malika, 2019). Although technology can be utilized to make better decisions, it can be used to replace the process of human decision making, but rather it should complement it. The second thing is that it is a reminder that context is of high significance. Whether in the society or football, we do not commence with the rules which have to be followed, but rather, we initiate with a vision of how we need the game to be, and thus formulate laws or rules to attain the needs. Therefore, enforcing laws or rules mechanically without ascertaining the contexts makes very little sense. Most often, we do not recall that algorithms lack context understanding. The third is the fact that tradeoffs are inevitable. For instance, stoppages that are made to check VAR kills the game’s flow and thus take out the joy of celebration of a goal which may be disallowed by the VAR later. A myriad of individuals would be more inclined towards old-fashioned refereeing methods in a bid to retain the thrill of the game. These are similar tradeoffs that occur in our lives, for example, between the manner in which technology makes our lives easier and the privacy loss it subjects one to. An appropriate acknowledgment of such tradeoffs ought to take place.

Nevertheless, not all is grim about the utilization of VAR in sports. There are others in support of this technology because of its probable positive impacts in sports. For instance, a study that was undertaken by sports scientist at KU Leuven, consisting of more than 800 matches in several nations, showed that the accuracy of the refereeing was significantly improved to regions of more than 93% to almost 99% in the four categories that they intervened (Medeiros, 2018). More than 57% of the referrals were for goals and penalties, and VAR was utilized less than five times in one match, and the aggregate time that was lost due to the VAR checking process was as minimal as 90 seconds in the whole game. This seems to cross out all the reasons why VAR is controversial, and in this manner, the criticisms can be termed as being naïve. Without the utilization of VAR, there would be no justice as the errors that are made by the on-field referees are not counter-checked. The function of VAR is to rectify some decisions, but not all, and the problem is that the spectators are always picking out the controversial things only while ignoring the correct decisions made by the VAR, which make the game fair. Usually, it works well, but when it does not, the negative discussions resurface, and this is not rational as we should look at both sides and not be blinded by one side.

Conclusively, the decision to introduce VAR into the football game should be seen as a necessary change that football needs in order to improve the experience of the spectators. While others advocate for its cessation, it is vital to give it time as it evolves as per the needs of the game, and thus making it more accurate and less controversial.