The frenzy surrounding VAR is set to reach its peak this season.
"We gotta tread carefully," warned moderator Tommi Schmitt following Borussia's match against Bayer Leverkusen last Friday. If the role of VAR isn't reevaluated soon and the handball rule isn't clearly established - the Bundesliga could face uncertain times ahead.
"Nothing was perfectly acceptable," said Knut Kircher, often referred to as the "referee boss," in Sport1's "Doppelpass," using subtle language for an impending disaster that, if no significant changes occur, will inevitably escalate this season. The worst part? Kircher and his team are well aware of this hazard. He also mentioned on Sunday one of the numerous current sources of criticism, "The criteria for a handball that we currently use aren't clear-cut. It's not as simple as black and white." There's little room for admitting a major flaw.
The consequences were evident in the stadiums and on TV screens this past weekend. While the game against Fortuna Düsseldorf was turned due to Chessa's handball being called a penalty in the 80th minute, Stegemann in Augsburg did not penalize Bremen's Jung for a clear hand involvement after a failed clearance attempt - despite similar offenses in both cases, the hand rule was consistently misinterpreted with the aid of VAR. Absurdity at its finest! And let's not forget Kaminski's handball during Wolfsburg's game against Bayern in the 31st minute.
"Ridiculous circus clown"
It's painfully clear that these incidents, along with the progression of the season, will ultimately result in an escalation. Why neither the DFB nor the referee community haven't at least demanded a more straightforward interpretation of the hand rule, despite the other problems VAR mercilessly exposed at the beginning of the Bundesliga, remains a mystery. It's downright comical when Kircher openly admits, "There will be deviations to the left and right throughout the season. We must catch them." But, as always, he remained silent on the subject of how "catching" should be implemented.
"We gotta tread carefully," wrote author and moderator Tommi Schmitt on Friday after the first Bundesliga match between Borussia Mönchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen, a wise observation. Because the role of VAR that night surpassed acceptable boundaries, when the hope was that video technology would make football fairer by correcting clear errors. The goal was clear: "VAR was designed for clear errors: spitting Rijkaard, obvious offsides, Lampard's goal against Germany in 2010 at the World Cup, the Wembley goal in 1966, etc." But instead, it's transformed into a bureaucratic tool that suffocates any emotion and renders the actual referee a ridiculous circus clown with no power.
The match between Gladbach and Leverkusen was a microcosm of everything that makes VAR increasingly unpopular among fans and growing segments of the football community. It was therefore ironic that the opening match of the Bundesliga season once again highlighted the challenge that the current implementation of VAR in German professional football presents. Not only was the analysis and evaluation, compared to the European Championship (where there was one more person on the VAR team), significantly slower, but the supposedly controversial situations in which the video assistant referee intervened were far from clear-cut.
And yet, Kircher himself pointed out on Sunday in "Doppelpass," "We only want VAR for black-and-white decisions." Yet, it's now evident to all German football fans that we're nowhere near that point - at least not after this weekend. And so, the first stage of escalation has already begun. If the Bundesliga does not act swiftly and decisively to halt these developments, the outcome is as predictable as it is unfortunate.
The handball rule's ambiguity, as acknowledged by referee boss Knut Kircher, has led to inconsistent VAR decisions, such as the one in Augsburg and Wolfsburg, causing frustration among fans and the football community. TO add to this, the DFB and referee community's silence on clarity in implementing the handball rule further fuels uncertainty about the future of video refereeing in the Bundesliga.
