DAccording to former referee Urs Meier, the presence of football referees has suffered as a result of the introduction of video referees. “They could actually do it, but the VAR takes away this self-evident, this quick and active action. It’s kind of blown away. You then seem inhibited,” said the Swiss in an interview with “ran.de”.
Meier is therefore open to a regression in some areas. “My wish would be – but it probably won’t be granted – back to what we had. Tor or not Tor – we need that tool,” said the 63-year-old. “I can also imagine that we can solve the question of offside or not with technology. These are black and white decisions. But where there are gray decisions, the referee must have sovereignty again.”
“I overlooked very elementary things”
Overall, Meier considers the performances shown at the World Cup in Qatar to be acceptable. “In general, the games were played fairly, so the referees’ performances were mostly okay. There were very good refereeing performances, there were less good refereeing performances,” he said.
When it comes to the less good refereeing performance, Meier refers in particular to the referees Wilton Sampaio (Brazil) and Antonio Mateu Lahoz (Spain) in the quarterfinals. “For me it was no longer a game management, in both cases very elementary things were overlooked,” he said. Meier accused the referees of a lack of concentration. He also expects that “everything has to be right” at this level, otherwise you would lose acceptance in the game.
The referee Wilton Pereira Sampaio from Brazil polarized the game.
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Image: dpa
Lahoz set a World Cup record in the game between the Netherlands and Argentina (3:4 pens) by showing 17 yellow cards and one yellow-red card. The Spaniard had been sharply criticized for this by Lionel Messi, among others. Sampaio wasn’t completely convincing when England lost to France either.
At the World Cup, a performance gap is clearly recognizable, says Meier. He sees the reason in the fact that the European referees would have an advantage by managing Champions League games. The premier class “is Formula 1 in football. You learn to lead games at this level, at this pace, with this dynamic,” he said.
“That will help you at a World Cup. Those who don’t have that come from Formula 2 to Formula 1. It usually takes a little time to get started – but they don’t have that.”
Urs Meier is a former referee from Switzerland. He officiated at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups.
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Image: dpa
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