You know when you see those incredible car adverts? First the emotive music, stylish cinematography and the dulcet tones of the immaculate voiceover, before you’re introduced the sleek exterior of your dream motor, dancing around cobbled streets with ease, before it breaks into the open sunshine filled countryside with the road all to itself – and then the interior, incredible legroom, everything you need integrated, temperature controlled and heated leather seats. And just as you think, got to be too pricey for me up pops the ‘from’ £19,999 and you’re thinking. I’m having this!
Well, I get the impression the VAR showroom works for Scottish football the same way the following part of your car buying experience goes. You toddle down to the showroom and your greeted by all the top spec automobile wet-dreams front of house, before the salesman bursts your bubble. You tell them you’ve seen their advert, the £19,999 budget is probably at your max but you love the car, so let’s have a spin, shall we? And you are escorted back through the showroom to the furthest dustiest corner where free coffee is replaced by a vending machine, to where your budget meets the basic model.
The one in the advert certainly isn’t under £20k, in fact it’s nearer thirty, but your car looks similar, just a bit less impressive – and effective. And once you see that grey cloth interior instead of the shiny leather in the advert you know where you stand – right at the back of the showroom, looking to buy a similar car, but not the one two doors up have, and certainly not the one in the advert.
With Scottish football baulking at the difference between four unmanned cameras for £60k or six manned cameras for £100k, it makes you wonder what the all singing all dancing version the English Premier League has, perhaps theirs dispenses coffee at half hourly intervals and orders your pie at half-time.
In Scotland we won’t be getting that.
You can see everyone now saying, every league in the world has VAR so we have to have it too, and you know what that is probably right, one way or another we either have it or we’re left behind. But beware not all VARs appear to be created equal, and we now know from today’s breaking news the Scottish football is shopping in the basic model market and just trying to work out if it can stretch to the inbuilt sat-nav or we can get by with plugging in the Tom-Tom.
Anyone hoping the days of contentious decisions and Lanarkshire based referees having undue influence may be over could be disappointed, as not only are referees only as good as their interpretation of the laws on the field – or in a portacabin – it seems the technology they’ll be using may be nearer the Renault Clio end of the market than Mercedes Benz – what could possibly go wrong?
Just wait until we get the consternation, when we don’t get the camera angle needed for a definitive decision on another Ryan Jack leg breaker, on another teenager – that’s twice in less three weeks Ryan, just saying – and the soon to follow cries of a waste of money, same old story, and conspiracy theories of lens caps left on and deleted feeds, rather than the fault of the cheap technology we’ve bought, overseen by the same inept interpretations from our dreadful officials. Not only will this technology be cheaper it won’t do what you see it does on a Sky Sports Super Sunday, not to the same extent anyway.
And not only will we be getting Aldi rather than Marks and Sparks, it now seems like some eejits think Celtic and theRangers should be footing the bill – after years of the two cheeks of the same backside, both get all the decisions, nonsense, we’re getting hints from the likes of Jim White that we should be stumping up, as if this technology is purely for the benefit of Celtic, oh, and theRangers – can they even afford it anyway? Fair question surely, much like the showroom, I’d be asking to check the credit report.
So now not only are we buying a Lada and having it driven by a rotation of drivers sponsored by Specsavers, we’ll also be expected to foot the bill This has to be a non-starter, after all when you move into a six-bedroom room-share you don’t split the Council Tax, electricity and gas bills based on your take home-pay, compared to Trust Fund Tamara in the room upstairs, and if you all decide on CCTV being installed it’s not split between the two highest earners or based on the balance of their savings account. After all, as much as VAR may not be created equally, the decision-making process to this point was, and so should any costs that may be incurred.
How this all unravels is mildly entertaining, but not as amusing as the belief budget buying VAR will cure Scottish football’s sub-standard officiating.
Niall J
