Forget Passion, Video Refs are the Correct Decision!

Did it feel a bit weird? Yes!

Did it feel a tad clunky? Yes!

Did it mute the celebrations of players and fans a little? Yes!

But were the two decisions made in Paris correct? Yes!

Football, the sport I love, have played and have commentated and reacted on over my entire life saw a glimpse of a great future last night in the Stade de France where the hosts faced Spain, and although it felt a little strange, at the end of the game I was elated.

Why?

Correct Trumps Passionate
Football is primarily a participation, not a spectator sport? It’s not for me or my phone-in to have a career, or for any pundit, fans or player to decide that incorrect but “passionate” wrong decisions are the way forward but for players and as a secondary importance, fans, to walk away from a match on a Saturday and KNOW that the correct goals and decisions have been made.

Those are THE most important factors in any football match.

Right Calls
I tweeted through the whole game whilst most pundits were out for a curry, washing their hair or simply not bothered about the groundbreaking potential that tonight shone a light into, and they will miss out massively, because unless you watch the whole game live again you won’t understand in highlight form the dynamics of what took place.

Griezmann scored a header, which I called a “great header”. I was wrong, the video ref was called upon and made the 100% right call that the goal was offside.

I saw some tweeting, suggesting that one minute upwards for a decision kills the game. Absolute bollocks! The wrong decision kills the game, and on top of that the repressed anger of players who would have felt upset by a wrong decision then can manifest itself in protests which take the same time, naughty tackles out of spite and a whirlwind of pub debate which has turned into an industry. Most of the time this industry that comes to no satisfactory conclusion, just talk, just waffle, just conjecture.

I repeat, the video referee got the DECISION RIGHT.

Secondly after Spain’s second goal the same treatment was given, a minute or so pause, a slightly strange stop in proceedings (I’ll give you that but only that), a chat with the video ref and hey presto, a goal rubber-stamped as a fact again, two out of two CORRECT decisions made!

Bad Pundits
How can we honestly moan about correct decisions being made? Because we like to swear black is white through MOTD every Saturday? Paul Ince, the pundit who KNEW the questions would come about the technology post-match showed how many UK pundits are staggeringly unqualified to be sat in a chair on TV or radio, saved for the fact they could play.

“I like the passion and spontaneity of the celebrations so not for me,” he waffled. But then came out with a direct contradiction in the same sentence “but football and goals are about facts, so they were the right decisions.”

WTF? What does this actually mean from a top class player and a former Premier League manager? It means he’d rather walk back into the dressing room having put his heart and soul into a game or a team he’s prepped all week but lose because the crowd sounds great than know that his team have lost fairly or squarely based on facts?

This isn’t well thought out punditry and Paul Ince is not alone.

God forbid if this were played out on Sky, MOTD or the radio stations this week as we all know the usual suspects would be coming to the well thought out position of “forget the facts, let’s get wound up that the crowd goes quiet for a few seconds”.

Again, I repeat, the time it took to get to the right decision is way less than a protest or stoppage for heated exchanges later in the game when players are still pissed off at being wronged when they see it on their half-time big screen in the dressing room.

Time To Get It Right
I’m all for passion in the game, but I’m more for correct decisions and the end to pub debates being more important than factual decisions being made.

And finally, what was the really nice unintended consequence of the pause while the ref made his decision?

Not one player surrounded the ref. Why? You look like a twat when you can’t argue against a fact.