Former UEFA president Michel Platini is not yet convinced of the effectiveness of the VAR system and added that similar technologies will soon kill real football.
This summer, for the first time in a tournament of such scale, the VAR system was used at the World Cup. It caused a lot of discussions during the championship, but there were many episodes in which VAR saved referees from wrong decisions.
"So far, VAR has not brought more justice to football," - said M. Platini controversially. - "I know that FIFA's job is to calculate statistics that satisfy them. At best, the VAR system can help determine whether the ball crossed the goal line and whether a player was offside during a pass."
"However, there are still episodes that we are not protected from. For example, in the World Cup final, France scored the first goal after an offside, which was not called. Later, as a penalty was awarded for a handball by a Croatian player, the referees sitting at the computer screens simply manipulated the main referee, who could not make a decision at all.
Until now, no one can say whether it was a handball or not. All Croatians insisted it was an accidental episode, while the French immediately wanted a penalty kick.
Who knows, maybe tomorrow we will see team captains and goalkeepers playing with earpieces so that coaches can directly communicate with them during matches.
If this continues, we will simply kill football. It has already happened with cycling and Formula 1. In football, we have already killed the work of referees. Why are all referees and their associations in favor of VAR? Because it protects them from their errors, and in any case, they have always been on the side that protects them," - explained the legendary Frenchman.
