Table 7.1 Topic of commentators’ discussions during 1,049 matches shown on Match of the Day: 2011–2014
We know that the football authorities are doing something to improve refereeing decisions by introducing new technologies to make goal-line judgments. In the introduction we provided some figures to explain how little effect this will have on the game. Table 7.1 shows the complete story of the 1,049 matches we analyzed during three seasons of BBC’s Match of the Day (MoTD)—92 percent of all the Premiership matches played in those three years. The table shows the topics of the incidents that the MoTD commentators discussed and the commentators’ views in respect of whether referees made right or wrong decisions. Once more, this table may not be an exact re-creation of these three seasons of football, but it would have to be literally incredibly inaccurate for the overall message we can draw from it to be wrong. That overall message, to repeat, is that goal-line disputes are a near negligible part of the problem of refereeing and the erosion of presumptive justice.
Table 7.1 Topic of commentators’ discussions during 1,049 matches shown on Match of the Day: 2011–2014
As can be seen, the number of incidents where incorrect decisions about goal-line crossing are said to have been made is very low compared to the many other controversial decisions about which goal-line technology has nothing to say. In the first two seasons, goal-line disputes caused 44 discussions, with referees wrong only five times according to the commentators. In the third season, goal-line technology was introduced, but was required on only six occasions. In contrast, there were 558 other discussions about goal-related decisions that could have altered the course of the match, with referees being wrong 335 times according to the pundits. According to this analysis, goal-line technology if employed over all three years could have corrected at most 3 percent of the total of incorrect decisions. To repeat, these figures do not have to be exactly correct and the commentators do not have to get everything right for this table to provide an unmistakably strong message. If we halve the numbers in the middle rows, or even divide by four, goal-line technology is still providing next to nothing compared to the other categories of goal-affecting judgments.
These other goal-related mistakes could, we claim, be largely put right using TV replays. But the football authorities say that this would spoil the game by slowing it down to an unacceptable degree. If TV were used in football in the way it is currently used to decide “try” or “no-try” in rugby union, or in the case of run-out or stumping decisions in cricket, they would have a point. But, as we have argued, there are other ways to use technology in these sports; we will return to them in the conclusion after we show how to use TV replays in football without causing disruption.
How could TV replays be used in football where it is considered that even small delays are unacceptable? The answer is twofold. The first part of the answer is to think about justice, not accuracy, and this means giving ontological authority to the referee and invoking the Right If Not Wrong (RINOWN) principle presented in chapter 5. The second part of the answer, unique to football, is that there should be no interruptions at all; instead, play should continue while officials viewing TV screens consider whether a referee has made a glaringly visible mistake. Once more, unless the mistake is visible enough to be quickly spotted by officials and the crowd, then the referee’s decision would stand and play would continue without interruption. If, however, an obvious mistake is spotted—the kind of mistake that can be spotted by the commentators on MoTD—then play should be pulled back to where it was when the mistake was made and restarted in a manner appropriate to the incident.
We want to suggest one more innovation, taken from a principle found in American football. In American football when referees think that a foul or an unfair move has been made, they throw a small yellow flag onto the field: commenters say “there is a flag on the play.” The play may continue to its conclusion before the referees get together, have a discussion, decide what happened, and, if appropriate, pull play back to where it was, awarding a penalty of one sort or another. We want to introduce the idea of “flag on the play” into European football, using not a flag thrown on the field but a light—a light visible to both the crowd and TV viewers. The light would be radio-controlled by the referee, or referee’s assistant, or TV judge, any of whom could choose to have the decision reviewed by the TV judge while play continued. If no refereeing mistake was spotted upon review, the TV judge would turn off the light and the game would continue. If a mistake was spotted, the verdict would be relayed to the referee who would stop the game and pull it back accordingly. Using the Right If Not Wrong principle, one would expect the light never to be illuminated for more than a few seconds.
Table 7.2 shows how the system would work in the case of the full range of possible infringements and errors. Starting with the top row, where the referee awards a penalty, the game is halted anyway and there is time for the TV judge to decide if a mistake has been made. If a mistake has been made, the penalty decision will be reversed before the kick is taken and play will be restarted with a drop-ball or a free kick from the appropriate location. If, on the other hand, a referee does not award a potential penalty, then play continues as before, but now the referee, or assistant referee, might press a button that switches on the light asking the TV judge to take a second look. The TV judge might decide to take a second look anyway—he or she would also have that power to switch on the light. In the table we see “flag” a number of times. This indicates when the “flag-light” would be turned on. We will write throughout the remains of this chapter as though the flag-light idea is acceptable, because it is a convenient way of describing when an official decides to have a decision reviewed: they “turn the flag-light on.” Of course, the whole system would still work without any warning light, so the flag-light is not an essential part of the ideas presented here; but, to us, it seems like a very good idea.
To repeat, as far as what follows is concerned, whoever alerts the TV judge, or the TV judge him- or herself, would, as part of the act of alerting the TV judge, illuminate the flag-light to show that play was being reviewed even as play continued without interruption. If, after a short time—and again, the right length of time would have to worked out as experience accumulated—the TV judge decided the referee’s decision was right, play would continue and the flag-light, if used, would be switched off. If the TV judge decided that the referee had made a mistake, and that a penalty should have been awarded, the referee would be informed and would stop the game and award the penalty. Any event that had taken place while the match was under review would be treated as though it had never happened except in the case of foul play or violent conduct, which would still be penalized as appropriate.
Table 7.2 How to use TV replays (TVR) without slowing down the game
Penalty/no-penalty has been dealt with. We now move to the second row, which is about goal-line disputes. This is the kind of case that is now settled by some more complicated form of technology that, although it is often described as “Hawk-Eye,” is apparently not a track estimator but a complicated TV replay system. We simply do not know enough about how it works to comment on the use of this technology, but we note that the furor over wrongly awarded goals that led to the introduction of this complex goal-line technology arose out of mistakes that were completely obvious on standard TV replays. Consider the example of the goal scored by England’s Frank Lampard against Germany in the 2010 World Cup that was not awarded. It would have taken five seconds for a third official watching TV to have corrected that mistake. There have been a number of similar outrageous errors, but all of them were easily spotted by standard broadcast TV technology. It was precisely because they were so easy to see using that technology that they caused such a fuss—TV viewers around the world immediately knew they were being cheated. But by the same token, no higher level of technology was required to correct the mistake and restore the justice of the situation.
Going back to the second row of table 7.2, if this goal-line technology were to be replaced by TV replays, if the referee awarded a goal that was dubious because it was not clear whether the ball had crossed the line, someone could switch on the flag-light, and the third official and the crowd and home viewers could look at the replays and, following the idea of RINOWN, quickly decide to either carry on or overturn the decision. In this case play would already have stopped because a goal would have been awarded. If, in similar circumstances, the on-field referee did not award a goal, the game would continue while he or she or one of the other officials switched on the light; play would continue for the few seconds it would take to decide if the referee had made an obvious error. If no error had been made the light would be switched off and play would continue as though nothing had happened. If a mistake had been made, play would be stopped, a goal awarded, and the normal restart from the center would take place. There would be no delays and there would be no obvious injustice, because there would be no significant difference between the perspective of the viewing public and the match officials.
Moving to the third row of the table, for marginal offside, the game would not be stopped nor would the assistant referee’s flag be raised, but the referee or one of the other officials would switch on the flag-light, and—perhaps taking advantage of the Level 4 technology of computer-manipulated reorientation of the officials’ perspective as used by MoTD (so long as it is shown to be reasonably accurate)—officials would make a rapid decision. Only if the TV judge concluded that an offside decision was in order would play be pulled back.
Moving to the next row, with clear offside or clear foul play, things would continue as they do now, but with the review taking place during the stoppage created by the on-field decision. Should it turn out that the “clear offside” or “clear foul” was not so clear after all, play would have to be restarted, probably with a free kick. Referees would have to be discouraged from stopping play for these events unless they were really sure they were right.
The situation for yellow and red cards (fifth row) would also be similar to what currently happens. Play is stopped anyway so there would be no extra delay, but during the stoppage the TV judge would confirm the referee’s decision or advise against it. Even if the card were withdrawn the free kick would probably still be appropriate. If the “offense” turns out to have been a “dive” or something similar, however, the punishment might be reversed.
Off-the-ball incidents missed by the referee and seen by the TV judge or an assistant referee would lead to their switching on the light, reviewing the incident in public, and if and only if the incident is confirmed, the game would be stopped and the appropriate free kick and or card awarded. We should note—and the point applies to all sports, not just those discussed in this book—that the role of a match official is more than simply spotting and punishing offenses committed by players: the match official also has the duty of keeping the game going and making sure the crowd is entertained. Sometimes it is better to ignore minor fouls so as not to reduce the game to a series of stop-and-start incidents. Wise crowds and commentators generally understand when, for example, a football referee is doing his or her best to avoid reaching for the whistle and preferring to let the game flow. For the same reason, TV-watching officials would be instructed to be careful not to abuse their privilege and not reach for the flag-light switch unless they see something serious in the way of foul play. This, as always, is the kind of human judgment that can never be eliminated from any human decision-making arena, but it is also the kind of judgment that is widely understood.
Moving to the final row, corners and the award of throw-ins could be continually monitored by the third official with the crowd watching the same screen. The game is stopped anyway, and the TV judge would advise if the decision should be changed.
The overarching rule would be that nothing is changed unless there is clear evidence for changing it, where clear evidence means quick evidence so the review period would always be short—only a few seconds—and there would be no need to stop the game during the review. As can be seen from the final column of the table, these procedures do not impose extra delays and the game should flow just as it does now. The flag-light would not be designed to be easily visible to players, but teams whose players spotted the light and relaxed their efforts while reviews were taking place would run the risk of being punished by teams who continued to play at full tilt: slowing down during reviews would be a very high-risk strategy.
Whether or not the momentum of goal-line technology means that it will be kept in spite of it being used on only a very small number of occasions, all or most of which could be handled by regular TV replays, we do not know; it is, of course, notoriously hard to understand how the football authorities make their decisions. Table 7.2 shows how football could be restored to the state of perceived justice that obtained before the introduction of television. It would involve no slowing of the game, but it would mean that the public is no longer being palpably cheated by seeing their teams lose games they should have drawn, or won, as a consequence of avoidable refereeing mistakes. It is really hard to see why such a change is resisted.