Technology is a good thing, but the problem is implementation. If you review a decision, what about non-decisions? You have to include both, otherwise it's a biased implementation (ie review a penalty decision, but not a non-penalty decision, means the only outcome would be to cancel a penalty, thus biased for the defence). The only plausible implementation, IMO, would be a coach's call. Allow them 1-2 appeals a game.
Offside is problematic - you'd need specialised equipment to be able to tell the close ones (the digital line that the TV stations like to draw is insufficient as it's inaccurate, doesn't show up the close decisions and only really shows feet), though it would still work on major decisions.
Who reviews? The ref? The 4th official? Too many top tier referees are too arrogant to admit they're wrong on the field.
Problem with all this is culture. Amongst referees, there's a massive culture that appearing right is far more important than being right. Amongst the rest, they have absolutely no idea what they want from referees. None.
But the problem is the culture of abuse. Have a decision overturned? The ref/AR will hear about it for the rest of the match, and possibly a few matches after. The abuse culture is not conducive to a process potentially overturning referee decisions on the park. In fact, the culture is completely hostile to it. Now, the problem with this is that this sort of response is likely to encourage further abuse during the game, or further decreased respect during the game. This leads to more scenes of players mobbing the referee, or whinging and crying every time a decision is made, or just hacking the other players and not listening to the referee. I'm not saying that those things are reasons for not getting the decision correct in the end - I'm simply saying that the culture of abuse, and the culture where players and team officials are not held accountable for their actions, is too abusive, too hostile to encourage a fair system.
And that takes me to a unique problem with video refereeing in this game. In rugby league, rugby union, and cricket, video referees come in when the official hasn't made a decision - in fact, when the official is actually asking for help (not sure about other sports). That's different to video refereeing here, where its entire purpose is to second guess a decision (including one that no offence has been committed) that has been made.
Personally, I don't think as many decisions will be overturned as a lot of people expect. Any doubt whatsoever, and it will just go back to the referee's decision. And if I think back to all of the big decisions that have caused uproar this season, virtually all of them have had some debate about them. Which suggests to me that in the video box, there's going to at least be some doubt for many of them - and from experience, it's a lot harder to be 'certain' when your decision carries weight than it is screaming at a television. It's simply impossible to put yourself in the same decision-making mindset when your 'decision', as a spectator, doesn't matter. So, it's probably going to be harder to overturn a decision than expected. This is also a hardware limitation - will they implement high-speed cameras? Where and how many? Will the referee have access to footage from every camera on the ground in checking the decision (presumably so)?
The final problem is that sometimes the referee simply had a better view than every camera at the ground. It may not happen often, but it does happen. If so, video refereeing WILL lead to some correct decisions being overturned. There's been plenty of incorrect video decisions in other games.
Overall though, I don't think refereeing has kept up with the game, but I think there are much bigger problems in the culture and philosophy of refereeing that contribute to that which I won't get into here (as well as the prima donna culture of the game, the culture of abuse, and the lack of personal responsibility of players and team officials for their conduct). So, i think the implementation of videos is a good thing and on balance it will benefit the game - as long as it's done in a manner which isn't overly disruptive to the game, and gives just as much opportunity for changing a decision one way into a decision another way as it does for changing a decision not to stop play into a decision to stop play. and I think the only way to do that is a limited number of 'coaches calls'. As to who does the reviewing? Ref? 4th official? Problem is, how are they going to review a decision without everybody being in their ear? Again, the culture of abuse wouldn't allow an on-field review. Would probably have to be somebody in a box in the stadium, like in the other sports. Pitch-side monitors will not work at all.
these ideas should be in the fifa bin of stupid ideas, along with silver goal golden goal and rolling subs
Nothing wrong with rolling subs - this is a game for everybody, after all.
