Perhaps the view that crucial mistakes and decisions that were correctly supported by VAR should be mutually exclusive is, perhaps, a bit quixotic, but UEFA's direction regarding evaluation of Violent Conducts and Serious Foul Play has worried us this season.
Last night, in Bruges, we reached a new nadir.
Club Brugge - Manchester United FC
Aliaksiej Kuĺbakoŭ (Marco Guida)
With a medium-to-high intensity Red no.22(GK) hits Blue/Black no.42 at a high contact point using his studs.
=> The tackle by Red no.22 is a foul, and play should be restarted with a penalty kick.
=> The tackle by Red no.22 endangers the safety of his opponent and should be punished with a Red Card.
The purpose of this post is not to attack to Italo-Belarusian refereeing team specifically, who disappointingly restarted play with a goalkick in this scene, but to point out how their decision fits into a wider discourse of UEFA Refereeing.
The days of policeman-style referees progressing at an international is ostensibly over. One can be sad or not about that, but it seems they became incompatible with top-level football. Law 5 - The Referee does not challenge that.
When UEFA risks the safety of the players in order to keep twenty-two players on the pitch at (almost) any cost, then not only refereeing, but the wider football community should stand up for protagonists on the pitch, of an officiating or playing capacity, who are played fools by the business-people who stand to gain from the profitability of the product that the referees and players are part of.
It would be totally naïve to ignore that high-level football is a commercial entity, but in our opinion, UEFA Refereeing led by Roberto Rosetti crossed the line this season: their approach puts the players at risk in UEFA games.
The imperative statement in this post, one hopes at least, is clear and obvious for all of our blog's readers.
