YOKOHAMA: FIFA President Gianni Infantino has defended the use of video replays despite a shaky debut for the new system at the Club World Cup.
\nThe replay system allows referees to halt play to review footage of \u201cgame-changing decisions\u201d, but its introduction has had a mixed reaction from players and coaches at the tournament, including Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo.
\n\u201cThe results are extremely positive,\u201d Infantino said. \u201cOf course there are learnings, of course there are a few topics that we have to look into and discuss in more detail, but the result is extremely positive. Why? Because the referee has been able to take the right decision and justice and transparency have been brought to the game.\u201d
\nFollowing Thursday\u2019s match between Real Madrid and Club America, several players were skeptical about the system.
\nThe system was used for the first time on Wednesday when Kashima Antlers were awarded a penalty kick that led to the first goal in a 3-0 win over Atletico Nacional.
\nKashima midfielder Gaku Shibasaki sent in a free kick in the 31st minute, and teammate Daigo Nishi was then fouled inside the box by Atletico Nacional forward Orlando Berrio.
\nAfter receiving information about a missed incident from video assistant referee Danny Makkelie, Hungarian referee Viktor Kassai drew an imaginary square with his hands to indicate that he would conduct a review of the footage via a monitor on the sidelines. Kassai then pointed to the penalty spot, ruling from the replay that Nishi was tripped inside the penalty area by Berrio.
\nShoma Doi took the penalty and scored Kashima\u2019s first goal but there was some confusion as Nishi appeared to be offside.
\n\u201cIn the first game with Kashima, the referee didn\u2019t see the situation and the video assistant referee saw a clear tackle so he interfered,\u201d said Marco van Basten, the former Dutch international who is FIFA\u2019s chief officer of technical development.
\n\u201cThe referee watched the television and said \u2018OK, you are right and I give a penalty.\u2019 So in the end it took a few seconds too much but it was the right decision.\u201d In Thursday\u2019s semifinal, Ronaldo scored an injury-time goal to help Madrid beat Club America 2-0 and earn a spot in the final.
\nBut after Ronaldo scored, referee Enrique Caceres appeared to ask for confirmation from his video assistant referee that there was no offside. The Paraguayan official then decided that the goal stood without appearing to view a video himself.
\n\u201cThe television doesn\u2019t work, huh?\u201d Ronaldo was overheard saying with a laugh as he left the field.
\nFIFA officials attributed the confusion on the Ronaldo goal to a problem of communication between the officials. \u201cWhen Ronaldo scored the second goal it was a clear situation and there was no offside,\u201d Van Basten said.
\n\u201cSo in the end it was good and the right decision was made. Only the communication between the video assistant referee and the referee was not optimum.\u201d
\nFIFA says the aim is to achieve \u2018minimum interference, maximum benefit\u2019, with the technology only being used for defined match-changing situations and any serious missed incidents. In these cases, the question a VAR will consider is not \u2018was the decision correct?\u2019 but \u2018was the decision clearly wrong?\u2019 Referees still retain the authority to make the final judgment. Managers and players will not be allowed to appeal to referees to review an incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
YOKOHAMA: FIFA President Gianni Infantino has defended the use of video replays despite a shaky debut for the new system at the Club World Cup. The replay system allows referees to halt play to review footage of \u201cgame-changing decisions\u201d, but its introduction has had a mixed reaction from players and coaches at the tournament, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n