The spike in penalty kicks at the current European Championship won approval from UEFA’s head of refereeing in a mid-tournament review of match officials. The record-setting numbers at Euro 2020 are trending the same way as during the 2018 World Cup, where video assistant referees were first used at football’s biggest event.
“One of the key points for this increase of penalties, of course, is related also to the implementation of VAR,” UEFA chief refereeing officer Robert Rosetti said in an online briefing. The 14 penalties awarded so far at Euro 2020 in 36 games compares to only 13 given in the group stage at the past three tournaments combined, a total of 84 games. The running total at Euro 2020 includes five penalties that were not initially whistled by the referee. The decisions were made after checks with the help of video monitoring at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. It was a similar story at the last World Cup, where FIFA launched VAR. The 24 penalties given in the group stage in Russia almost doubled the 13 at the entire tournament in Brazil four years earlier. The big change is not in how the game is being is played but because of increased accuracy using video replays to spot fouls that once escaped match officials, Rosetti said. “Before the VAR project there were many, many fouls in the penalty area missed by the referees,” Rosetti said. “Now it is impossible to miss these fouls.” A montage of “step on foot” fouls was included in the Italian official’s video clips of incidents. The Netherlands and Spain both were eventually given penalties after video review of, respectively, Austria defender David Alaba and Poland midfielder Jakub Moder treading on an opponent’s boot. “With VAR it’s very, very easy to assess,” said Rosetti, whose refereeing career pre-video review peaked with handling the Euro 2008 final. Rosetti would even have liked to have seen one more penalty awarded. He said Italy should have been awarded a penalty for handball against Turkey in the opening game. However, he defended the decision not to award France a late spot kick for a tackle from behind on Kingsley Coman in a 2-2 draw with Portugal. It would have been the fourth penalty of the game after Cristiano Ronaldo converted two and Karim Benzema one. “We don’t like soft penalties. We want clear penalties,” Rosetti said when pressed twice on the incident. “The penalty is something important in football... a serious moment in football.” A further statistical curiosity is the spike in penalties despite a big drop in the number of fouls overall. Rosetti said there were 806 fouls called so far, compared to 911 at Euro 2016 in the same 36-game group format. The average number of 22.4 fouls per game compares favorably to the 37.7 average at Euro 2004. “For sure,” Rosetti said, “a better attitude of the players in the field of play.”
Video reviews have been faster at Euro 2020 than in the Champions League this season. The average time for interventions after video review has been less than 100 seconds, compared to about two minutes in the Champions League. “We are doing better,” said Rosetti, noting checks on offside decisions have taken a little over one minute. The 21 “tight or difficult” offside rulings - where the decision was made in a margin of “plus or minus 10 to 12 centimeters” between players - were all correctly judged, Rosetti said. (Source: AP)
In all these matches, the only relevant error Rosetti points out is Celik's handball in the opening match between Turkey and Italy, in an action that Makkelie would have needed a VAR call by Kevin Blom for an on-field review. In that same match, Rosetti confirmed another mistake by one of Makkelie’s assistants who signaled an offside on a corner kick that he should not have flagged. "We know very well the strength and also the limits of the project. We know that the VAR is not an easy project and we know what happened in some countries for not using this technology well. It is still a young project that needs expert pilots. We need to find a balance in the intervention line because our objective is to keep football as it is now. We do not want to have to study all the minimal or marginal contacts in the penalty area. Minimal interference for maximum benefit. It is used only for clear and obvious errors", added Rosetti regarding the use of VAR in all European competitions.
Finally, and after congratulating the refereeing teams of the tournament, Rosetti dedicated a few words to the Englishman Anthony Taylor for his management of the moments in which Christian Eriksen collapsed in Denmark-Finland, and his quick performance. "We insist with the officials that safety is the most important thing, they have to be ready to handle these situations and Anthony Taylor was fantastic", concluded Rosetti. (Source: Sport)
