'Hand of God scoring' to disappear on the pitch

The 2016 FIFA Club World Cup, which has been running in Japan from Dec. 8, has become the first FIFA-organized competition to adopt a video referee system. Under the new system, video assistant referees (VARs) are placed in a video room inside the stadium in addition to the main and assistant judges. The VARs communicate wirelessly and upon a request from the referee, check the monitor and render a judgment based on the video with no caps on the number of requests. The VARs can propose a video refereeing to the judge, but the teams are given no such authority. The scope of refereeing includes scoring, penalty shot, sidelining, and fouls gone unnoticed.

Kashima Antlers of Japan became the first beneficiary of video refereeing on Wednesday. In the 28th minute of the first half, a player of Kashima Antlers fell inside the penalty box by a rough challenge from Atletico Nacional of Colombia, which was missed by the referee. The game went on for about two more minutes before being suspended by the referee, who checked the video and declared a penalty kick for the Antlers. Gaining the upper hand of the game with that penalty, Kashima defeated the opponents by 3-0, advancing to the finals of the Club World Cup as the first Asian club to reach the milestone.

Owing to the perception that “bad calls are part of the game,” football circles have been skeptical of introducing video refereeing system. In May this year, however, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) made a decision to test the system as a two-year pilot project before reaching the agreement on permanent implementation. The move is in line with the recent trend where video refereeing system is being increasingly used in other sports such as baseball, which is improving precision of refereeing, and where spectators can catch bad calls through replays thanks to the advancement of broadcasting services.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino is holding the view that video refereeing should be adopted starting from the 2018 World Cup in Russia. If the World Cup games, the largest competition organized by FIFA, start to use video refereeing, this will bring about a number of changes for the players on the pitch. Some of the old defense practices such as tugging and tripping in a set piece will be significantly restricted.

“Video refereeing will make it possible for the judges to alter his decisions anytime. We believe that this will help address the difficulties of judges required to make calls that are sometimes beyond human efforts such as in blind areas,” said Cho Young-jeung, the head of the referee’s committee at the K League. Some experts point out that video referees will result in mid-game delays due to its time-consuming nature. “Based on thorough analysis on the pilot project, we will continue our research on how to implement the new referee system successfully without causing unnecessary delays,” an official from FIFA said.

Yun-Cheol Jeong trigger@donga.com