The implementation of VAR has been progressive in League 1, trying to meet the minimum standards required by the FIFA protocol for the use of technology. Although we are far from comparing ourselves to elite football, where there is an impressive display of 16 high-quality cameras inside the stadium to capture all the details of the game, the discussion is not on the need for VAR, but on the way to use it. this resource to do justice despite its deficiencies. And here there is a problem, because it was not always like that. Because?
It is not difficult to look back and find cases in which the VAR (or those who manage it) made mistakes: fouls that deserved expulsions, wrongly made charges that affected the game and penalties that open the controversy have been seen in the League 1. And, when there is injustice, one team is harmed and the other favored. All the clubs in League 1 have experienced this, but the magnitude rises to power when Alianza, Universitario or Cristal are involved, precisely those who are fighting for the national title.
What happened in the Cristal-Municipal does not give rise to interpretations. Yoshimar Yotún should have been sent off for that strong tackle against Alberto Ampuero, but they showed him a yellow card and the VAR did not correct that error at the time. In the end, Yotún ended up being decisive in the game because they committed the penalty and it was he who scored the winning goal. Is the sky captain to blame? Not at all. It is clear that the responsibility belongs to those who are in the VAR cabin and, it is assumed, they rely on technology to do justice. Later, the Conar (National Commission of Referees) published a video acknowledging his mistake; but the game has already been played.
So, the ideal is to reduce the margin of error to a minimum so that the scales are balanced. After 60 days of its premiere, the VAR has to improve, but not from its material; but from the empirical. Revealing the audios of the conversations between the VAR assistants and the main judge would be a starting point, because it not only makes the controversy transparent, but also serves as self-criticism for the referees themselves. Knowing where they went wrong and why allows them to correct mistakes and improve. To this, add constant training as a complement to what is already done well. If in two months the general feeling is the same, something is not being done right. And that is key to change it.
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