Apart from the mouth-watering displays that players bring on the field of play, the direction of the pendulum-swing in games is largely dependent on a lot of factors, one of which is the officiating. As enthusiasts and fans, we must have witnessed games where the officiating played a very crucial role in determining the outcome of the game. For example, the 2009 Champions League semi-final second leg between FC Barcelona and Chelsea FC at the Bridge in London saw the referee of the day make very controversial and highly questionable decisions that later ended up hurting the Blues and favouring the Cúlers. The latter ended up winning the title and setting a record of being the first team in club football history to win a sextuple (six trophies) in one season. The list of other controversial match-ups goes on and on but one thing is certain; this issue is not only peculiar to the Western world as we have also witnessed games within the University of Ibadan that have left fans disgruntled after the game.
When compared to the previous session, this session has witnessed a limited number of controversial games but the refereeing decisions have still been far from perfect. The quarter-finals game of SEALS Cup 2023, last session, between IPE and MBBS has to be one of the most heated matchups in quite a while. In that game, MBBS took the lead via a wonderful strike by Karbon but since the goal went in, IPE piled up the pressure on the MBBS team and it nearly paid off for them. IPE were called offside thrice in the game and were denied two penalty claims. The last penalty claim which was denied towards the tail end of the game was the straw that broke the camel’s back as the IPE fans raided the pitch and the referee was allegedly assaulted. The match was left uncompleted and MBBS, thus, won the game 1-0 and secured a spot in the semi-finals. This outcome left many football enthusiasts within the University very unhappy and left a clarion call for the organizers of major sporting events to do better in terms of the selection of officials. It also highlighted the poor behaviour of some sports fans within the school, who choose violence has a means of airing their grievances with officiating decisions.
As alluded to earlier, they have done a good job but it can definitely be better. In the just concluded SEALS and Super Cup tournaments, there were key takeaways. Firstly, the central referee decisions were decent overall but the linesmen were the exact opposite. In the words of a fan, Pius, speaking on the linesmen in the Super Cup, “The linesmen throughout this tournament have been sh*t, I kind of noticed this during the first two matches, the Animal Science and Chemistry game.” The majority believe that their offside calls have been very bad, meaning that when they’re required to call for offside, they don’t and when they aren’t, they do. The ineptitudes of the linesmen were so much so that the central referee sometimes disagreed with their decision. This was highlighted in the match between Dentistry and Nursing as an offside which wasn’t called by the linesman was spotted by the central referee. There were a number of other games that had students wondering why the calls were so bad, some game-changing, some insignificant.
Speaking to other students like Quwam of Statistics, it is safe to say that this issue arises from the laziness of the linesmen. This is so because they are spotted in matches, standing in a specific location, rather than doing the job of running along the lines so as to get a proper and accurate view and thus, make the correct decisions. This is something that the organizers of tournaments really need to look into as they should either instill proper orientation of the job description to the already existing linesmen or completely overhaul the existing linesmen and appoint more experienced hands.
We could fault the linesmen for as long as possible but the question remains, have we really moved on from the central referee’s mistakes? How long till these mistakes become very minimal to the point that the outcome of games is not solely determined by them? These questions hold water as it would be gross naivety to assume that all is perfect because of the limited mistakes in one session. This begs the question; how can we proffer a lasting solution that would limit these issues to the very least?
In modern football, there has been an introduction of a technology, the video assistant referee, popularly known as VAR. This technology was introduced to aid the referees on the pitch in making the correct decisions as they are afforded the opportunity to recount and brainstorm on the passage of events during games. Many have faulted this technological addition but the fact remains that the inadequacies that surface are not due to the technology in itself but the human errors and the plethora of rules that have been incorporated in the game thus leading to a wide range of inconsistencies in decisions across games. In a nutshell, technology, be it the goal line technology, the semi-automated offside, or the VAR, has helped football and it is strongly believed that the incorporation of technology into the games that go on in the University will go a long way to mitigate the prevailing refereeing issues.
Weighing the options with feasibility in context, the deployment of cameramen, tasked with the responsibility of video coverage of the games from the blast of the whistle till the end will help a lot. For this to effectively work, at least two cameramen, each on opposing halves and sides of the pitch, would be required. The existence of this will help the referee make correct calls like the offside and fouls that occur in the box during set-pieces. Also, it’ll help the referee know when the ball has hit the back of the net or has crossed the line for a goal as there have been moments, due to the poor state of the goalposts at the Old Stadium, where controversies emerged as to whether the ball hit the back of the net or nor or if the ball had crossed the line or not. Asides this, the introduction of this technique can help in the review of handball calls in the sense that penalties are only given if the arm is away from the body and in an unnatural position. This will mitigate the growing number of harsh penalties due to handball decisions made.
The adoption of this model can prove difficult as it could be very cost intensive to incorporate photographers and videographers to the budget of the organizers. Also, as it is with fans, there will still be some level of discontent amongst them regarding the decisions because they won’t be the ones responsible for checking the video footage. In totality, however, it’s a “risk” worth taking as the chances of it improving the games by far outweigh the chances of it making them worse. This could also help in the world of athletics as tight calls could be properly scrutinized and a winner correctly adjudged. It could also help in determining false starts at the beginning of the race.
Fans also have to accept that they are dealing with amateur linesmen, who aside not having the pre-requisite training, are also just functioning out of passion for the game, since many do not get paid and even when they do, it’s certainly not enough to warrant the abuse that follows. As such, grace must be extended to these officials, much like it is extended to players when they commit errors leading to goals or make the wrong decisions with their passes and runs. That middle ground protects the sanctity of the sport. Otherwise, we have even more chaos on the field of play, and the beautiful game is tainted.
Referees are humans and so are the fans of the beautiful game of sports. These recommendations are not to totally solve the problems of inconsistences and controversies but to reduce the margin of error to the minimal level it can get for a university-level game. This, in itself, will leave the focus of the fans where it should be (on the players and their performance).
Nmesomachi Okoronkwo.
