“‘Minimum interference, maximum benefit’ was the promise when VAR was first introduced. Those were the words used by David Elleray, the technical director of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), in a presentation to journalists at Wembley Stadium in March 2017 to justify the profound change the game was about to undergo. … The logic was clear enough. Examples such as Diego Maradona’s handball against England or Thierry Henry’s against the Republic of Ireland were held up as proof. Under this new system, those headline mistakes could be surgically removed from the game, keeping everything else intact. The laser precision of technology was all that was required. …”
NYT/ATH