Football coach Nicolas Jover has been probably the best in the business in his field for several seasons. And even though the big club he works for has fans all over the world, very few people know who this football coach is and what his area of expertise actually is.
But this season at the latest, in which his club, Arsenal FC, won all seven games in the Champions League, the name Nicolas Jover should be remembered. Because he, the assistant coach, brought a ball back into focus that many thought was a dud at Champions League level: the corner.
The way Jover positions his players in the penalty area for corner kicks with various variations of running, blocking and running is artful. But since Tuesday there has been a threat that the artist will have to adapt his art.
Why the Bundesliga should reject the rule
At its business meeting, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) – the rules governing football – decided that the powers of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) should be expanded with the start of the coming season. All that is missing is confirmation by the general meeting on February 28th.
If what we can assume happens, the following would change, among other things: The VAR could not only check red cards, but also yellow-red cards – and would be able to intervene in all cards that were shown to a player from the “wrong team”. He could also point out “clearly wrong” corner kick decisions to the referee, as long as this could happen “immediately” and “without delaying the resumption of the game”.
A VAR decision that does not delay the resumption of the game – that is a punchline in itself, but with regard to the corners it is not the point. With this rule, the rule makers would create an incentive for a coach like Nicolas Jover to instruct his players to quickly run to the corner flag and take the corner kick quickly whenever a corner kick is made that may be wrong: this will prevent the VAR from intervening and his team losing the ball. That shouldn’t be the case. And because corner review, unlike card review, is optional for now, the Bundesliga and all other competitions should reject it.
It’s good that the VAR exists. Because it should not be the case that players and coaches benefit from video technology during the game (Nicolas Jover analyzes game scenes on his tablet and then passes on the results of his analysis to his players), but not the referees, who have to make decisions with potentially the greatest possible consequences. But with the new change, the IFAB is going a step too far – because something could happen that should never happen: that playing behavior changes because of the VAR.
