In the latest installment of his official column for Hollywoodbets Sports, Jerome Damon says the match officials will feel vindicated as VAR came to the rescue for the SA contingent of Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates in the CAF Champions League.
VAR will feel vindicated after another impressive display of officiating...
This past weekend, the CAF competitions headed into the semi-finals first leg stage, with the South African contingent of Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates facing off against the North African giants from Egypt, Al Ahly and Pyramids FC.
In both matches, VAR was almost in overdrive. One thing to always keep in mind is that VAR checks everything. As former IFAB Technical Director David Elleray once said, “People will forgive human error more easily than they will forgive human error with technology.”
And he’s 100% correct.
Making a mistake with technology and numerous angles at your disposal is almost unforgivable.
When we first started the CAF VAR project back in 2018 in Morocco, we committed to ensuring that we worked well within the protocols and worked hard at getting it right from the get-go.
We had to convince Africa that VAR was a necessary part of world football and needed the rest of the world to have confidence in Africa’s ability to implement VAR.
At first, there were many challenges, none bigger than the mess in 2019 at the CAF Champions League Final in Tunis when the VAR system failed at the most crucial moment.
The assistant referee raised a flag for offside against ES Tunis, chalking off their goal, but there was no VAR to correct it. The system had failed during the practice run, and the needed part did not arrive in time.
The rest is history.
Fast forward to this past weekend. Mamelodi Sundowns hosted Al Ahly, whereby the VAR verified all the decisions by the on-field match officials, confirming that the goals were correctly ruled offside.
In contrast, at FNB Stadium, Pyramids FC thought they had a comfortable two-away-goal advantage going back to Cairo. Instead, after both on-field decisions were legitimate goals, VAR sprang into action.
Fiston Mayele, the burly Pyramids forward, thought he had scored the all-important goal as Pirates’ Mbokazi had last played the ball. VAR felt that the referee needed to interpret whether Mbokazi deliberately played the ball or if it was a deflection.
One of the criteria for deliberate play is whether the player had time to coordinate their body movement.
The referee from Burundi correctly ruled that Mbokazi did not have time to coordinate his body movement, placing Mayele in an offside position and gaining an advantage.
So, no goal was the correct outcome, much to the ire of Pyramids coach Krunoslav Jurcic.
In the 84th minute, Sodiq Ougola of Pyramids thought surely this time there could be no problem, but again VAR pointed out to the referee that directly before scoring, the ball had touched Ougola’s arm.
While this was not deliberate but purely accidental, the law is clear: It is a handball offence if a player scores in the opponents’ goal directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental.
The referee changed his on-field decision and correctly awarded a free kick to Pirates.
Yes, these were bitter pills to swallow, but as the teams’ journey to Cairo for the return legs next week, they should be confident that “VAR is used exactly the way it should be used.”
And, according to Jose Mourinho, after the last AFCON, “…the headquarters of VAR should be in CAF.”
Mourinho is onto something.
Former referee Jerome Damon – who featured in multiple World Cup tournaments – delivers his authoritative column every Monday, exclusively for Hollywoodbets Sports…
