Referee bad, video worse?

Referee bad, video worse?

Pere Mas
Mazic pitará al FC Barcelona
Mazic pitará al FC Barcelona | AFP

It’s going to be difficult for FIFA to convince people of the benefits of the video assistant referee (VAR) after the fiasco in the final in the Confederations Cup. In the words of Spanish broadcaster Manolo Lama, “the three in the van” did not provide much assistance at all to Milorad Mažić, the referee, who gave just a yellow card for an elbow and stamp by the Chilean Gonzalo Jara on Germany’s Timo Werner. And this despite the fact that the referee referred the incident to the VAR. On COPE radio, a furious José Joaquín Brotons hit the nail on the head “the referees are bad, brazen and arrogant. That referee is manipulating the competition!” Poor Isaac Fouto tried to explain that the VAR was there to correct big mistakes, no mistakes of interpretation. “The sooner you understand this, the sooner the controversy will end”. But this did not convince Brotons “these things are not a matter of interpretation because they decide a game!” Perhaps the referee Iturralde González got closer to the truth on SER “With the VAR, I was worried it would make me unemployed, but I think I’m going to have to work even harder. If you don’t see violent conduct in that elbow, you’re not good enough for a final”. The human factor. Amen.