A-League grand final exposes flaw in video review protocols

The game’s ruling body concedes the A-League grand final has underlined the need for a ‘back-up system’.

A screengrab shows three Melbourne Victory players offside during the A-League grand final last Saturday night.

The game’s international lawmaking body concedes the A-League grand final exposed a flaw in the protocols for video reviews and underlined the glaring need for a “back-up system” in case of technological glitches.

Saturday’s video assistant referee (VAR) failure in Newcastle has reverberated around the world, with the German Bundesliga among the competitions that have contacted Football Federation Australia seeking information about what went so wrong.

FFA has already sent a preliminary account to the International Football Association Board, the organisation responsible for the laws of the game, and will prepare a more detailed paper once Hawk-Eye has analysed the “crash dump report” from the software program that froze moments before Kosta Barbarouses’s ninth-minute goal for Melbourne Victory.

It meant the VAR on duty, Craig Zetter, did not have access to the side-on camera angle which made it clear that defender James Donachie was offside when he headed the ball across the box for Barbarouses to score.

It comes just a month out from the World Cup in Russia, where the VAR will be used for the first time at football’s showpiece event.

“The incident in question was primarily the result of a short-term failure of the technology rather than human error on the part of the VAR team,” an IFAB spokesman said in a statement.

“No technology system is perfect and what is important is for everyone to learn the lessons from this incident and ensure that when there is a technology failure there are procedures and a back-up system, so the problem can be overcome.”

A-League chief Greg O’Rourke confirmed that there was no alternative system in place for the grand final, which he believed was consistent with all leagues using VAR across the world and the protocols set out by IFAB.

“That’s clear. They have back-up hardware but this was a software crash,” he said.

Although it will be of no comfort to the Newcastle Jets and their supporters, the creation of a standardised fallback option will most likely be the long-term legacy of the 1-0 defeat.

O’Rourke said FFA had recognised the need for one and several months ago had toured the NRL’s video referee “bunker”, which has a back-up booth. With the A-League still committed to the VAR, it’s likely the competition will look to emulate the rugby league set-up, which oversees all matches from a central location.

AAP