To get an overview of British conservatism, let's look at sport. It is not surprising that VAR in football is in trouble | Simon Jenkins
tHere is proof of a true radical. It is not a search for a revolution in politics, philosophy, art or religion. The challenge is in the field of sports. Only sport is immune to reforms. He is enslaved to the past.
Olympic athletes wield the weapons of ancient Athens. He golf club dates of the hundred years war. The size of a football goal was fixed in a Holborn pub in 1863, probably because of the reach of the barman. The elegance of cricket is a legacy of the British empire. The officials enjoyed five languid days to play a match.
So what hope is there for the survival of football's video-assisted referee (VAR), now under attack from English football's elite? Reviewing referees' decisions via camera replay is common in sports such as tennis, rugby and cricket. var He was introduced to soccer, or soccer as Americans like to call it, by Dutch radicals. in 2016 And for good reason. With goals so difficult to score and entire games often hinged on a single decision, it seemed only fair to help precision with technology. Most people agreed. Within three years, the UEFA Champions League and the World Cup used VAR, and the English Premier League did so in 2019.
Cue chaos. For many British fans (including myself, an Arsenal player), low scoring is football's only serious flaw, although the Premier League has just surpassed an average of three goals per game. for the first time. There are long periods of tedium. The defense is stronger than the attack. Results that differ by a single objective are the norm.
For traditionalists, all this is the merit of sport. The outcome of a game is always uncertain. The suspense remains. Scoring is so rare that players and fans create television scenes of crazed hysteria when it occurs, not the decorous applause of a cricketer or a tennis ace. If we add to that the drama of defective refereeing – Maradona's “Hand of God” goal against England in the 1986 World Cup – we have sport in all its grotesque eccentricity.
Television has capitalized on football's formulation of spasmodic hysteria. BBC Match of the Day strips matches of their dullness by offering little more than goals followed by ecstatic outbursts. At times the show seems to show as much reaction as actual play, like Strictly Come Dancing.
The VAR has complicated these reactions. It involves delay and often anticlimax. When in the old days a referee made a mistake, the cameras could focus on the coaches shouting with joy or hanging their heads in despair. The match was full of emotions on the field. VAR takes emotion off the field. Everyone expects technology. Who knows when cameras and artificial intelligence will completely replace human referees?
This week, Wolverhampton Wanderers duly submitted a proposal to end the Premier League's five-year use of VAR at the league's Annual General Meeting next month. The debate is flooded with fans and players complaining about the lethal impact of VAR on a match. The great Wayne Rooney declared: “He has taken all the enjoyment out of the game… We have to wait to celebrate.” It is as if the essence of sport was not the act of scoring, but rather the act of reacting.
In truth, television has had a limited impact on the conservatism of sports. He has imposed on cricket the excitement of limited-overs matches and immensely popularized tennis. But all things being equal, the status quo prevails. The United States got nowhere with its attempt, at the turn of the century, to expand soccer's 24-foot goals to increase scoring. Britain may have lost an empire, but it rules supreme in sport.
Games are more conservative than any other form of human activity. The reason must be that they require rules, and rules work only if everyone agrees and obeys them. Maybe you long for more goals to be scored in soccer. You could argue for fewer penalties and meaningless scrums in rugby, more hitting in cricket, fewer silly shots in swimming or bigger holes in golf, making driving more important than putting. You might believe that such reforms would make everyone more enjoyable, both to play and to watch.
I haven't met anyone who agrees with me. Sport can be awash with gambling, drug use, corruption and staggering wealth. Its rules, designed by English private schools and imperial soldiers in the 18th and 19th centuries, remain the same as when these institutions were the pillars of the empire. I am not aware of any attempt to fundamentally “decolonize” any area of sport based on the inherited model. The cry is simply playing and following the game, the same as always.
Therefore, VAR may still prove to be the definitive test. If he first division If they vote to abolish it (and I don't think they should), Britain will be out of line with the practice of arbitration around the world. It's hard to believe that the world will do the same. Is the sun really setting on the “end of the empire”?
