More Fallout from VAR Error vs. Liverpool

Today’s edition of Today FC is brought to you by: Antonio Rudiger’s run.

You know, it’s a tragedy that no one else on planet earth made a GIF of this. That’s right, this baby was made in-house. That’s just how far we’re willing to go to provide quality content for you all ❤️

Today we talk about:

• VAR, and if Darren England’s error has had the immediate effect on it that we all hoped it would.

But first, here’s your FRONT THREE.

*Cue dramatic news music*

The Front Three

New Potential Wonderkid Alert 👀 (let’s try and stay calm this time)

• Last Sunday, 13 (yes, 13) year old Da’vian Kimbrough became the youngest professional debutante in North American soccer history.

• The teenager came on in the 87th minute for USL club Sacramento Republic in their 2-0 win vs. the Las Vegas Lights.

• Kimbrough is just the latest in a long list of young footballers to make me go through an existential crisis.

Let’s all hope he doesn’t get the usual “starboy” treatment from fans: blind, unadulterated hype until he turns 19 and we lose hope in him when he hasn’t turned into the second coming of Messi.

Samuel Eto’o is under fire for alleged match fixing. Here’s some background:

• The former Barcelona and Cameroonian international has had a turbulent tenure since his election as president of Cameroon’s Football Federation almost two years ago.

• He’s currently embroiled in perhaps his biggest scandal to date after an audio tape was released revealing an incriminating conversation between him and Valentine Nkwain, president of Victoria United.

• Victoria (aka Opopo) just last season were promoted to Cameroon’s top league for the first time in almost two decades, however that promotion is now under heavy suspicion after the two longtime friends were caught on tape allegedly planning to rig games in Victoria’s favor:

“Opopo must go up to the first division,” he says. “This is our goal. This is our federation. Victoria United will go up. Stay calm, we will grant you the three points and we suspend the referee. But let me at least go back to Cameroon.”

Not a great look. But what does this mean?

• Nkwain responded that he “did not recognize” the audio tape. However, Cameroonian outlet Camfoot reportedly sent out the footage for professional analysis, the result of which concluded that it was, in fact, the two men in question on the recording.

• Camfoot also reported that “Nkwain denying the existence of the conversation should have triggered a self-referral to the ethics commission of the Cameroonian Football Federation”, however nothing has happened as of this issue’s publishing.

• Fecafoot’s Code of Ethics outlines that the punishment for corruption is “a fine of at least 10 million CFA francs and a ban on taking part in any football-related activity for a minimum of two years. However, recent precedent suggests that the punishment could prove steeper.

• Fecafoot has dealt with a great deal of corruption recently, just last month handing down a lifetime ban for one of its club presidents Donald Ngameni after audio leaks revealed him offering a player a guaranteed place in Cameroon’s national team in exchange for two million CFA francs.

• Eto’o has a great deal of power and influence within Fecafoot, so we don’t expect any ruling to be handed down soon.

Reply to this email and let us know how you would respond to this situation if you worked at Fecafoot.

Statue stops match in Iran. 

Last night a match between Saudi league side Al-Ittihad and Iran’s Sepahan was canceled due to the presence of a bust of Qasem Soleimani the Iranian club had placed next to the field.

If you don’t know who this guy is, here’s the short version:

• Soleimani was the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, which CNN describes as “an elite unit that handles Iran’s overseas operations – and one designated as a terrorist organization by the US and Saudi Arabia”.

• After the US killed Soleimani by drone strike in 2020, the late general was survived by a polarizing reputation.

• While some in Iran see him as a martyr, people in Saudi Arabia see him as a terrorist for his involvement with Iran-backed militias.

These two countries have had a turbulent history with each other, however, CNN’s Mostafa Salem commented in their piece on how football has appeared to mend some of the tensions as of late:

“Soccer has proven to be an effective bridge builder between the former foes. Iranian and Saudi teams competed last month for the first time in seven years in Iran, where billboards in the streets welcomed the Saudi teams in English, Arabic and Farsi. Iranian soccer fans have also been seen wearing Saudi team jerseys after the kingdom’s clubs made high-profile purchases of international soccer stars.”

So…Did Darren England’s mistake change VAR for the better? 

If you missed Monday’s issue, we talked about the controversial error made by VAR in Sunday’s match between Liverpool and Spurs. At the end of the piece, we posed the question on everyone’s mind: “will this mistake spark systemic change?”. In our own words:

“Sure, you can fire Darren England for this, but this isn’t the first massive mistake made as a result of VAR, which likely points to bigger, more systemic issues pertaining to how officials are trained to make decisions. Focusing on the individual would certainly send a message, but would provide very little substance in terms of affecting any significant change.”

PGMOL seemed to agree, as they released this statement tracing the cause of the error back to inadequacies within protocol:

“After the on-field officials had disallowed the goal for offside, the checking phase and process started and was carried out correctly by the VAR.”

Great. So now let’s examine what’s actually changed (if anything). In order to do that, we need to take a closer look at what PGMOL has given us.

PGMOL commits to take three key measures in order to prevent future errors.

• Guidance to Video Match Officials has always emphasised the need for efficiency, but never at the expense of accuracy. This principle will be clearly reiterated.

So far, so good. Although the statement is a bit vague regarding how this principle will be reiterated. Are we talking further in-person training for officials or will it be more of a “we’ll give them a pamphlet” type of deal?

- A new VAR Communication Protocol will be developed to enhance the clarity of communication between the referee and the VAR team in relation to on-field decisions

Now we’ve gotten to the meat and potatoes. New protocol is great, however again, the vagueness is disappointing. I can definitely understand why PGMOL would not want to lock themselves into a specific timeframe for this, but their statement definitely would have been stronger if they had included one.

- As an additional step to the process, the VAR will confirm the outcome of the VAR check process with the AVAR before confirming the final decision to the on-field officials

Another important change. One of the main reasons this error happened was a lack of communication. I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind waiting a few extra seconds if it (hopefully) keeps my team from getting screwed over like Liverpool was. Before we bring this one home, though, one question for you all:

Do you believe that PGMOL should continue letting fans hear audio from the VAR room going forward? Reply to this email and let us know.

Finally, in perhaps the most controversial of news, Darren England will not be sacked, but will not officiate any more Liverpool matches this season. Sam Wallace from The Telegraph pointed out in his piece on the situation that “the mistake will have affected (England) financially” as he would miss out on “around £1,200 on top of a basic salary of approximately £150,000”. However, many fans are still extremely upset about this. Monitoring the comments across the internet, one question seemed to be asked the most often:

“Why should other teams potentially suffer from England’s future mistakes?”.

While our position is very clearly focused on systemic change, it’s still a fair question to ask. What do you think? Let us know. Ok I lied, I guess I had two questions for you all.

Ultimately, while these statements gave us as fans more clarity, we still have a lot of questions.

So what do we do now?

PGMOL took this opportunity to at least commit to systemic change. Now, it’s on all of us to hold them accountable on the specifics. If they don’t want to give us a timeframe on when these changes will be enacted, we’ll give ourselves one. We’ve set ourselves a timer until the end of the year so we can follow up on the Ps and Qs of PGMOL’s promised changes, as well as examine if such changes actually materialized.

Until then, though…

Full Time. Thanks so much for reading, and for all of the support so far. Also, shoutout to FC Cincinnati for winning the MLS Supporters’ Shield. Had to give some love to the hometown team :)