6 months ago
50
The new PSL season is barely a month old but it’s already embroiled in the familiar crisis of questionable refereeing.
Last weekend’s match between Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns produced scintillating football, with the reigning champions winning 2-1 at FNB Stadium, but conversations which followed the sold-out spectacle centred mainly around the performance of match officials.
Chiefs fans felt they were let down by an assistant referee who didn’t spot an offside in the lead up to Sundowns’ second goal. Debate has continued to rage about that winning goal, scored by Iqraam Rayners – but not many are offering a long-lasting solution to eliminate such controversies, once and for all.
As we’ve stated here before, there’s only one solution: the video assistant referee (VAR), the famed system used by big leagues and approved for official Fifa events to ensure match outcomes are not influenced by referee errors, perceived or real.
Of course, VAR will not be a panacea to every aspect of officiating – our refs require training to understand basics of the laws of the game, and some have previously been demoted for underperforming and lacking fitness.
The system is also admittedly costly, as rolling it out would mean installing more cameras, and more referees undergo training to know how to operate it.
But as we’ve seen with the Chiefs-Sundowns incident, not having VAR in the PSL is a recipe for chaos. Having been disheartened by the earlier decision to allow Rayners’s goal, Amakhosi fans resorted to violence when their late equaliser was ruled out after the referee had spotted a foul in the lead up to the goal. Fans naturally overreacted with emotion to the disallowed goal, pelting objects onto the pitch and endangering lives, spoiling what was an afternoon of good, entertaining football. VAR could easily have helped quell such emotions as the fans would have seen the said foul and possibly calmed down.
While we understand the system is too expensive, it can be implemented in phases. How about making it a must for big games, and also cup finals, which in the last season have similarly been dogged by controversial calls?
Authorities at the PSL and Safa cannot overlook VAR any longer. It’s inevitable that SA football must implement the system sooner rather than later, for our local league to be up there among the best in the world.
SowetanLIVE
