Sports law professor Lúcio Correia believes that although FC Porto, like any other club, has the right to request the cancellation of the match against Arouca, the dragons have no chance of doing so.
“A bad conduct, a bad arbitration decision, in my opinion, has to do with a situation in the technical application of the game and, in this case, with the correct or incorrect interpretation – I don’t know exactly the fundamentals – of the VAR protocol. it forms part of the technique of the sporting game itself and, therefore, it seems to me that we are dealing with a strictly sporting issue, which I do not think has grounds for a total repetition”, he explained, in statements to TSF.
FC Porto announced this Sunday that it will request the cancellation of the match with Arouca, which ended tied at 1 goal, and which was marked by a failure in the VAR system, which prevented direct communication between the referee and the Cidade do Futebol.
In the 90th minute, the match referee, Miguel Nogueira, awarded a penalty for a foul on Mehdi Taremi. Several minutes later, the referee gave the VAR signal and went to the monitor, but could not see images, as he took a cell phone to communicate with Cidade do Futebol. A few more minutes later, Miguel Nogueira spoke with both coaches and decided to reverse the initial decision.
The specialist in sports law stresses, however, that the error is part of the game, whether in football, or “in any other modality”.
“How many times – and we have already seen – the referees do not agree with the VAR and it is their decision that prevails and many times the VAR does not even want to help the issue of the referees on the field and they also fail.” “This is part of it. The VAR has helped to eliminate many arbitration errors and to restore the legality of the decisions, but this is a situation that is going to be recurring. Whatever the case may be,” he points out.
Lúcio Correia affirms that, “like any other technological system”, the “VAR protocol has insufficiencies and imperfections”, so it would be appropriate to think about “expanding the scope of application of the VAR itself and verifying how it should or should not be articulated with arbitration” .
Regarding the phone call, the sports law professor confesses that “it is not a typical situation”, emphasizing, however, that “it is not a situation that compromises the integrity of the competition, on the contrary”.
“This means was used to prevent and ensure that all the means that could endanger decision-making -whatever they were- were secured and the referee decided in the way that everyone saw and it does not seem to me that it was deliberate or intended to harm anyone, and when one decides, there will be a party that will be favored and another not. That is part of the modality”, he insists.
Lúcio Correia also stresses that it is important that the decision be made quickly so that the competition is not in doubt, advancing that the Sports Court should take advantage of this pause for the teams to decide.
The Portuguese Football Federation announced this Sunday, after confirming the failure of audio and video communications in the VAR, that it is analyzing the case.
Source: TSF
