GreatEx wrote:
The challenge system works fine in US sports which are just advertising vehicles anyway, and cricket, where there are natural stoppages and the technology is able to provide clear empirical evidence for binary questions like did the ball hit the bat or did it pitch in line with the stumps. In football, VAR has wrecked the sport because it turns those rare goals from moments of spontaneous joy into agonising waits as incompetent morons try to use videos and laser pointers to answer subjective questions like was that a natural arm movement or was that tackle careless or reckless. Learn the lessons, keep this shit out of Aussie Rules. I'd even do away with score reviews, they're almost always inconclusive so get on with the game!
In addition, Football/Soccer being such a low scoring game means that a VAR decision might be deciding a team's only goal for the match.
A "Captain's Challenge" or whatever you want to call it for AFL would be bringing in an exploitable rule that seeks to prevent what exactly? How often are matches decided by clear umpiring errors, given that most adjudications in our game are interpretations and split second judgements, not binary choices?
It's easy to think up a scenario where a challenge system would be pox.
Less than a minute left and less than a goal down a midfielder gets a quick kick out of congestion to the edge of the centre square. The marking player is too far out to score and quickly pushes back from his mark to look for a lead. The ball was kicked out of the pack so the opposing team immediately calls a challenge even though it's clear to everyone that there was no touch.
Cue the video review where the shitty technology used means that the ball moves a foot between frames. The operator goes through the various angles interminably and after what seems like several minutes calls it as "insufficient evidence to see whether the ball is touched". Meanwhile, the defending team has parked 17 players in the forward 50. Super.