2022 World Cup: “With video refereeing, goals are conditional, emotions too”

“A football match is never finished before the final whistle.” The French-Tunisia outing, Wednesday, November 30, denied this old adage. Even after the three whistles, a fourth – theater – is still possible. The French Federation has filed an appeal, relating not to the questionable interpretation of the Hors-Jeu rule which led to the cancellation of Antoine Griezmann’s goal, but on the intervention of video referees, illegal since the game had resumed in the meantime.

In this case, a score correction would not change the identity and the order of qualified. But the possibility that a sports or civil court decides one result would mark one more step in the judicialization that the arbitration assisted by the video (Var) introduced.

In its hunt for errors that have become intolerable, the Var made its operators bailiffs measuring offside in the centimeter and adopting a binary logic for contacts and hands in the surface: everything that is found is sanctioned . To the devil the notion of interpretation – and that of intentionality, for the hands.

The match is therefore found under the constant threat of a court of appeal. The goals are conditional, the emotions too. The joy – or the disappointment – instantaneous that the entrance of the ball in the nets was now amputated by doubt. Even when the goal concludes a crystal clear action, we mentally go back to the detail that could cancel everything. Clear thoughts come to us, whether we fear or hope for invalidation.

The emotions would be doubled by the addition of a decision in second instance, his expectation would spare a formidable suspense? They seem rather divided by two. And then, this staging, is it football or television?

To automate arbitration a little more, we stack the devices based on sensors and cameras. The “semi-automatic offside”, adopted for this competition, tracks down the ball joints and the toes that go beyond, and delivers an image of synthesis that makes people. Technology or magic? Law 11 of football aims to prevent attackers from “camping” near the opposing surface. It should only sanction attackers who take an induced advantage over the defender, not a collarbone in an illicit position, like that of Dejan Lovren during Belgium-Croatia.

[🎞️video] 🏆 #fifaWorldcup
🇭🇷🇧🇪 The referee whistles penalty in favor of Croatia for a fault on Modric!
❌ May… https://t.co/xlrz6cnztd – beinsports_fr (@Bein Sports)

Supporters a bit of a psychorigid of this algorithmic justice are delighted with these verdicts, who certainly have the merit of deciding, even the machete, the countless dilemmas posed by each football match.

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/Media reports cited above.