UEFA's decision to remove video referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski from working with the VAR system in Wednesday's Champions League match between Real Sociedad San Sebastian and RB Leipzig sounds controversial, unfair, and political. It looks more like a PR move for the sake of UEFA's image than a substantive decision, which should take into account all important aspects related to awarding a penalty kick in the PSG-Newcastle match, and not only the reception of this decision or its criticism. By removing video referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski from the next Champions League match, UEFA is making him a scapegoat.
These important aspects are primarily the current "Laws of the Game", their interpretations and advice, tips and guidelines provided to referees before each season, and often also during the season, both live and online. The referees themselves know best how often they hear new suggestions on how to evaluate different contacts between the ball and the hand. When they return from UEFA training, they try to convey what's new in their countries, where the listeners usually ask one initial basic question: "Oh, they really changed it again?" UEFA and other entities involved in determining the interpretation of the "Laws of the Game" established by The IFAB have in recent years produced so many different interpretations, guidelines, guidelines, contradicting or undermining each other, that the situation has become absurd. Currently, almost every referee's decision regarding the "hand" can be criticized, reprimanded, or praised, juggling various arguments that arose during training for referees, while assessing various referee decisions, to justify or criticize a decision. Select, copy, paste - wherever you want or need.
A lot happened in the PSG-Newcastle match, but nothing happened that was known in the media and that could be the basis for making a substantive decision to remove the video referee from the next Champions League match. Did the on-field referees make some serious and egregious mistake and the video referee failed to help them correct it? No. Did the video referee call referee Szymon Marciniak to the monitor in a situation where he absolutely should not have done so? No. Wait a minute, Marciniak ran to the monitor and, after consulting VAR, he awarded a penalty kick, from which PSG scored a goal to make it 1-1. Yes, yes, but the decision to award the penalty kick was made by Marciniak, not Kwiatkowski. Therefore, if UEFA decided that it was a bad decision or so bad that the guilty party or guilty people should be punished, the main referee would be punished first of all, and the video referee could be punished as an accomplice, but certainly not the only guilty one. Was Kwiatkowski removed so that he could rest the day after the difficult match in Paris instead of thinking about the situations from the Real Sociedad - RB Leipzig match? Possibly, but if that was the reason, UEFA played it badly.
UEFA did not reveal any signs of a negative assessment of Marciniak's work. And they probably won't do it, because others are to blame. These are the authors of these various interpretations and re-interpretations, tips and guidelines, advice and orders, to which no "uncle from UEFA" admits now. Referees know well that there is a huge interpretation mess when it comes to contacts between the ball and the hand. The hair is divided into four and its parts are "combed" in opposite directions. Even in the seemingly marginal issue of interpreting contacts between the ball and the hand after ricochets, referees must pay attention to many different and often very questionable details. Did the ball ricochet closer or farther? From the opponent, from your teammate or from the body of the player who, after a while, touched the ball with his hand? What if there were two or three ricochets? Did it change direction after the ricochet? Did it change its direction significantly or not significantly? If it hadn't been for the ricochet, would it have hit the hand or not? If he was hit in the hand by the ball, could he have predicted that the ball would ricochet or was he surprised by it? Did the hit person have time to react after the ricochet or not? … The questions can be multiplied, because the issue of ricochets is only a tiny part of the problem with the interpretation of "handball". How does all this relate to the situation from the PSG-Newcastle match? Wouldn't it be better for football if the referees simply ruled that the Newcastle player had been shot at, impaled by the ball at point-blank range, and that the contact with the ball on his hand was purely accidental? Of course! I think so and I'm sure of it. But referees also have their bosses, who do not invent "something new" to allow their subordinates to ignore it. And ignore it in public, during a spectacle on a big stage. The referees listened to their bosses, they listened to it all too often and in different versions. Now even the referees of the World Cup final and the Champions League final are criticized for the theories invented by the interpretation bosses, who, after all, worked together to decide on the penalty kick for PSG. Something clearly went wrong in UEFA regarding "handball".
