Final call for the video ref...
I’m going to give the ‘You Just Don’t Get It’ award to FIFA, for their complete and unrelenting stupidity over the video refereeing debate. In case you just crawled out from under a rock, you can check it out (in part) here: http://www.smh.com.au/world-cup-2010/world-cup-news/fifa-digs-its-heels-in-over-technology-20100629-zfjs.html.
Most sports bodies, indeed most organisations, embrace technologies which help them to improve their chosen offering. Sure, some are more resistant to change than others, but by and large the availability of new technologies is seen as an opportunity rather than a threat.
Not so with FIFA, who seem to have contempt for their enormous audience as one of their core values.
Before I go too far, though, it’s important to remember that they are willing to embrace new tech in some areas. Like the ball, for instance. It’s not like it’s central to the game or anything, so why not see what the geniuses at Adidas can come up with when you sit a committee of marketing and engineering types in front of their computer simulators, let them kick a few prototypes around in their design studio car park, and then unleash it on the world’s biggest sporting event for all to enjoy in its unpredictable glory? Well done, lads. Again, if you didn't have wifi and an iPad under your rock, you can read more on it here: http://www.smh.com.au/world-cup-2010/world-cup-news/fifa-acknowledges-problems-with-jabulani-ball-20100626-zb6u.html.
Perhaps the ball dramas are behind FIFA’s reluctance to go to the video refs? Maybe they’re afraid that technology’s impact on the game will always be negative? As they say: once bitten, twice shy... And yet somehow, I doubt it.
The closest I can get to any justification is the following:
- they love the controversy, it’s good for the game because it creates passionate debate and solidifies allegiances (there’s nothing like a communal sense of outrage to bring people together); and
- it makes the game less accessible by introducing technology at an elite level that cannot be replicated at a grassroots one.
On point b) let’s remember that one of the main benefits of soccer is that it can pretty much be played by anyone, anywhere, in the same fashion irrespective of financial status. You just need an open space and a ball. That’s probably a factor in why it has a global following far in excess of, say, polo (because you need to buy really expensive Ralph Lauren shirts to play a game like that).
Soccer, on the other hand, is played passionately from the well-manicured fields of highbrow English private schools to the backblocks of Mexican slums, and everywhere in between. Sure, some play with better balls and better boots, but the idea that you’re forced into playing a less fair game where the ref’s decision is final by default (because you don’t have a video ref to go to)... well that doesn’t seem quite as much like the same game anymore, and the resulting attacks on the refs will no doubt undermine the game as a whole. So maybe FIFA thinks it’d simply be undemocratic to introduce a technology which helped differentiate one level of play from the other? Come to think of it, lacking the ability to appeal against injustices might just be a little too metaphoric for those in less fortunate parts of the globe, mightn’t it?
But I digress.
Despite debate going on for some years now, FIFA has consistently ignored calls for a video ref, and is currently refusing to discuss the matter. There is hope that with tomorrow’s press conference, that will change... but I’m going to be cynical and say I really doubt it.
In the meantime, they’re doing sensible things like banning the replays of controversial decisions on the big screens at the grounds. I mean, you wouldn’t want fans to see in perfect clarity, several times, and in slow motion exactly how bad the refs can get it some times. Nor to have a ref confronted with the same thing before being expected to go on and do his job with any sort of confidence afterwards. Or the players seeing how much they'd been wronged, for that matter.
One must wonder what is next – jamming mobile networks, so people at the games can’t see the replays on their handsets? Or read about it on Twitter, see photographic evidence on websites that are running live game blogs? Look at screenshots posted by their mates on Facebook? What about they tackle technology head on and just confiscate mobile phones upon entry into the stadiums? What about banning broadcasters from showing the replays to the billions around the world watching at home?
The world is changing. One wonders how long can FIFA treat its fans with such contempt before they revolt. Granted, I don’t see people going out and buying horses and mallets (and really expensive shirts) to kick off a game of polo on the weekend instead of football, but surely some sort of boycott/protest/uprising/murdering of a ref for a bad decision which cost a fanatical fan their chance at seeing their team World Cup glory is inevitable if this farce continues.
It’s time FIFA ended their silencing of the video ref debate, and opened it up to real consideration. South Africa seems a perfectly appropriate place for them to finally and openly discuss their elephant in the room.
