Over the past week, the topic of referee scandals has been the most discussed in Russian football. At first, the public's attention was attracted by the work of Vasily Kazartsev's brigade at the game between Spartak Moscow and Sochi, and two days later Rubin's head coach Leonid Slutsky had every reason to be dissatisfied with Sergei Ivanov's actions.
Basically, the victims' complaints related to ambiguous interpretations of game episodes, as well as the refusal of the referee to use the VAR system, which supposedly indicates either their low class or bias. However, the rules themselves are not exhaustive and provide significant freedom in terms of decision-making.
This became especially obvious after the RFU expert and referee commission published an official report on the RPL first round match between Spartak and Sochi. It presented assessments of all the key decisions of the judges, in particular, the appointment of two penalties to the hosts' goal. At the same time, questions are raised by the interpretation of the episode, the participants of which were Pavel Maslov and Kirill Zaika. The ESC RFU said that the defender of the red and white "blocked the advance to the ball" to the opponent, as a result of which he committed a "negligent foul." Doubts are raised by the fact that the Muscovites' player was in a more advantageous position and was the first on the ball, after which he touched his opponent's leg.
It is worth noting that the very wording “blocking the advance towards the ball” is rather lengthy. Most martial arts in the penalty area can easily fall under it, however, not all of them are punished with a penalty. In every meeting, there are moments when the players quite harshly scrub the counterparts from the ball and thereby block his path to the goal. This once again indicates the lack of clear rules, which is the cause of many scandals.
As for the moment with Maslov, a similar incident occurred in the Champions League this week, which also led to the appointment of the 11-meter. In the return leg of the 1/8 finals, Barcelona striker Lionel Messi took advantage of the slowness of Napoli defender Calidou Coulibaly and earned a penalty out of the blue. While the textured Senegalese made the swing, the Argentine escaped from behind him and actually took possession of the ball, standing right in front of him. The defender could not stop and with all his might hit the counterpart's leg. Dzhuneyta Chakyr had no choice but to point to the "point".
Both moments have their similarities, with the exception that at the time of the violation, Messi was in a significantly more advantageous position, while the stutterer was behind his back. To get to the ball, he had to run around Maslov, which was very difficult to do in the context of the episode. However, the verdict was the same.
Another example of the fact that each judge interprets certain points differently is the goal of Alexander Sobolev. He fought with Miha Mevla, during which he first slightly pushed him in the back, and then leaned his hands on his shoulders when striking. Kazartsev considered it acceptable and counted the goal. Nevertheless, in the 26th round of last season, exactly the same actions of the "Spartak" striker were regarded as a violation of the rules by Vladimir Moskalev. Then the referee saw a push from the forward and left the same score on the scoreboard in the game with Tambov.
The fact is that the rules of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) do not contain clear recommendations regarding the permissible limit of stiffness during the fight in the penalty area. Violations of the rules are combined there into one general paragraph, without analyzing specific cases. Yes, in its message, the ESC tried to give examples from modern football, but it is quite possible to argue with this. After all, the fact that in this particular episode certain foreign arbitrators behaved this way does not mean that their decision was absolutely correct.
As an example, again, we can cite a moment from the Barcelona - Napoli meeting, when the defender of the owners Clement Langlet pushed the much smaller Diego Demme away from him. As a result, the German crashed into Koulibaly and knocked him down on the lawn, while the French himself was left without a guardian and easily hit the gate of David Ospina. However, the officials did not react in any way. If we compare the actions of Clement and Sobolev, then the Russian did not act so hard either in the meeting with Tambov or Sochi. Nevertheless, it was his goal in the confrontation with the “wolves” that was canceled.
Taking into account the fact that controversial incidents are regularly interpreted not in the direction of "Spartak", assumptions about a conspiracy really take place. But by and large, there can be no grounds for such statements. On paper, the referees do everything according to the rules, they just have enough room for maneuver. And that's not counting the notorious handball in the penalty area, which in recent years has become one of the most discussed topics in football.
In this regard, Leonid Slutsky is much closer to the truth. At the memorable press conference after the match with Lokomotiv, he spoke not only about the mistakes of referee Ivanov, but also about the fact that he did not understand what the referees were guided by in certain cases. No wonder he admitted that he personally asked to arrange a meeting where the arbitrators could explain the nature of their decisions. But, apparently, the refereeing department left unanswered the requests of the Rubin mentor.
If we take specifically the match with the "railroad workers", then the root of Slutsky's discontent also lies in the imperfection of the IFAB rules, where the use of the VAR system is extremely ambiguously regulated. Initially, it seemed that the introduction of video assistants would reduce the number of errors to a minimum, but the International Council of Football Associations limited their capabilities so much that in practice it is almost impossible.
So, the rules say that the VAR system can be used only in the case of "obvious and obvious error" or "missing a serious incident." These include goals, penalties, straight red cards, as well as mistaken identification of a player - when the referee punished the wrong athlete. But other points of the law limit the capabilities of video assistants so much that their presence becomes almost insignificant.
For example, it says that "the original decision made by the referee will not be changed unless the video replay clearly shows that the decision was" clearly and obviously wrong. " Apparently, this was the reason not to watch the moment with Ivan Ignatiev for the appointment of the 11-meter goal against Lokomotiv.
As Slutsky later admitted, Ivanov and his assistants did not consider the referee's verdict deliberately incorrect, therefore they did not consider it necessary to at least watch the replay. And this despite the fact that the fall of the "Rubin" striker was facilitated not only by Marinato Guilherme, who appeared in his way, but also by Maciej Rybus, who was pushing in the back. Thus, the referee had two potential reasons to point out the point at once.
The reason for this may well be the fourth and fifth points of the rules on the use of VAR. According to the first of them, “only a judge can initiate a 'video review', while the powers of his assistants are limited to the ability to provide a recommendation. In the second, it says that "the final decision is always made by the arbiter."
This indicates that, in fact, the powers of the VAR are more than seriously limited, and video assistants cannot in any way influence the verdict of the chief arbiter. And this is even despite the fact that they have the opportunity to view the alleged violation from almost any convenient angle, while in dynamics it is very difficult to correctly assess some episodes. For example, in the case of Maslov's violation, Kazartsev was far from the scene of the incident, and Alex Kral blocked his view. And it was quite problematic for Ivanov to see a barely noticeable push from Rybus to Ignatiev's back.
The only way out of this situation is to change the rules and endow video assistants with additional powers. This will allow them to have more influence on the fate of the meeting and not allow the chief arbiters to make mistakes that can later decide the outcome of the confrontation. Yes, in this case, the RPL will have to go against the line of development of IFAB, but this is exactly what the Premier League did. There, almost immediately, the VAR referee was given special powers and all kinds of conditions for productive work were created for them.
In anticipation of the introduction of video assistants, many referees opposed this idea, citing a possible decline in the authority of the head referee as a reason. But in the same England, this did not happen, although it is the video assistants who have the right to personally make a decision on certain episodes. It should be assumed that this will not happen in Russia either, but the level of refereeing and the number of controversial decisions may be noticeably reduced.