Follow the scoreboard!

If you can even review the results of the elections, then why is it impossible - the results of football matches?

The most loud scandal in domestic football in recent months - the judge of the Spartak - “Sochi” match - forces me to return to the new newspaper in Novaya Gazeta (!) Years ago.

Namely, to the article “Judge the winners” (July 28, 2005). For many years, and not only in this article, I advocated the introduction of a video replacement system - allowing you to quickly view the disputed situation on the field and make a decision that excludes the judicial mistake. They answered me that this was impossible. That, they say, football is so beautiful that judges make mistakes, as is characteristic of a person in general, that the introduction of repetitions will “tighten the game” and so on and so on. Years passed - and it turned out that video replacements are not only possible, but necessary, and no one is already arguing with this. In this case, is it not to return to the discussion of the second of my then theses - that it is necessary to correct the “effective” mistakes of the judges?

Any football fan, wake him up at night, will list several matches on the move, where his favorite team lost points due to judicial mistakes. And it doesn’t matter - random or intentional.

Yes, later it is often possible to prove that there was an error.

Sometimes it is possible to achieve the punishment of judges - up to a long detachment from football, as the judges of the mentioned match Spartak - “Sochi” are now punished.

But what never can be achieved is a review of the match of the match, which was “effectively” by the mistake of the judges. This is an absolute taboo. No matter how mistakes were mistaken, no matter what they do on the field, the final account on the scoreboard will remain unchanged. And everyone knows this - and players, and coaches, and bookmakers, and judges.

I am not a fan of Spartak (which in St. Petersburg, softly said, do not like it). But the fact that the judge of the Kazartsev (note, far from the first time making the effective “mistakes”) in the game with “Sochi” took two points from Spartak is a medical fact. His mistake is recognized.

So why should this end? Return the selected glasses. It is forbidden? Why, actually?

It is possible - although it is not easy - to revise the verdict of the usual court and cancel the illegal sentence.

It is possible - although it is extremely difficult - to revise the election results if they are faked. As we saw in Yugoslavia and Ukraine, and as we see in Belarus, you can demand even the results of the presidential elections - and achieve this.

You can revise the results of the competition if it is carried out with violations.

You can revise the results of the exam if the inspectors have made an error.

You can reconsider the results of olympiads and world championships many years after the competition - if the use of doping by winners and medalists is proved.

And for some reason it is impossible to review the result of a football match, which is distorted by the mistake of the judge. The maximum is to punish the judge. Why on earth?

It is easy to imagine what would happen if the same logic triumphed in the above examples.

The verdict is canceled - and they say: "We punished the judge, and you will sit further."

The results of the elections are forged, falsification was proved in court, fake protocols were canceled - but instead of returning the mandates to those who are actually elected, they say: “We punished members of the election commission, and those who were originally declared from them will remain.” In St. Petersburg, we note, there were situations when a few months after the abolition of false protocols, the winners were not returned to the winners - but this cannot be recognized as normal.

When considering the appeal for the result of the exam, it turned out that the answers were incorrectly appreciated, and the student said: “The inspector is punished, but your score will not change.”

Finally, the use of doping by the athlete is proved, but he still remains with his dishonestly received medal - and they say to competitors: “We will not review anything” ...

The consequences of using this logic, I think, are obvious. And first of all, for the fate of those who fell under an unfair sentence, who were deprived of a legal victory in the elections, to whom, having underestimated the points of the exam, they did not allow the university to go to the university and so on. At the same time, the use of doping will become widespread: what to be shy if no one takes the medals later?

And if we talk about football, if the judicial decisions remain “eternal” and fundamentally not subject to revision, then the clubs (which I talked about one and a half decades ago) will know that the most profitable business is not to be invested in players, but in judges. And corruption will flourish - no matter how the leadership of the RFU changes, no matter how much thunder and lightning, the coaches of the “offended” teams throw and no matter how indignant articles the journalists wrote.

But even if you exclude the corruption factor and leave the “human”, the question remains: why should the teams lose points, medals, games in European competitions due to proven judges?

Introduced the VAR system for video replacements - great. But if it turns out that it does not guarantee the lack of mistakes (all the more “strange” as the judge of Kazartsev), which means that you need to make the next move and review the result of such a match. Moreover, there are not so many types of errors that change the result: an unexcounted or counted goal and an unfair penalty that led to the blue.

And there is no screaming about "determining the result outside the field." The result was actually defined on the field - it was simply incorrectly determined. And in this case, it is possible and necessary to correct the error after the match. This is the first.

And the second, begging - the use of VAR should not be the same as now, when everything is given to the judge and the video assistant who decide, to watch or not watch repetition.

The right to demand a repetition (and in their presence) in controversial situations should also be endowed with the coaches of playing teams.
If everything proposed is implemented, “effective errors” can become significantly less.

Including because there will be no benefit to make them.