It's December 23, around 9:10 p.m. The match between Anderlecht and Genk is in full swing when referee Nathan Verboomen awards a penalty to the away team. Initially, Genk captain Bryan Heynen's penalty was stopped, but in the rebound, Yira Sor scores 0-1. The footage shows that players from both teams, including the goalscorer, run in too early. The rules of the game then prescribe that the penalty must be taken again. However, the VAR overlooked Anderlecht's players. So in the end, Anderlecht got a free kick and won the game 2-1. Genk didn't stop there and went to the Disciplinary Council for Professional Football. It decides that the match must be played again. A rare decision, worth studying more closely.
Many sports regulations state that a decision by the referee is binding. This is what we call the field-of-play principle. The outcome of a match must be decided on the field and not in court. The Supreme Sports Tribunal, the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), therefore always follows this principle in its rulings. An exception is only made in very exceptional cases. This is because this is only possible if there is direct evidence that there was partiality, bad faith, arbitrariness or a legal error. If a referee has been bribed, his decision will therefore be subject to appeal.
The question then, of course, is which decisions fall under the field-of-play principle. The principle only applies if the decision has been made by an official responsible for applying the rules during a specific match and if the effect of the decision is limited to the playing field. This does not mean that a decision should no longer be revised afterwards. This review must then be laid down in the rules of the game and take place during or immediately after the end of the match, or “proximate” to the competition. Occupations involving officials' technical equipment, such as finish cameras, and occupations that concern which arbitrator has jurisdiction, such as which arbitrator can order a restart, are not covered by the principle and are therefore subject to appeal.
The Disciplinary Council for Professional Football is an internal body of the Belgian Football Association (KBVB), which (on appeal) is authorized to decide complaints about referee decisions. Based on the KBVB federal regulations, a match must be replayed, and an exception to the field-of-play principle is therefore made if two conditions are met:
1. The referee must have made a mistake in applying the rules of the game. It is therefore not about assessing a fact, but about applying the rules to that fact.
2. The mistake has profoundly affected the course of the game. This is about the fact that the distribution of points (win, loss, tie) may have been affected by the mistake. This is not the case, for example, if the referee made a mistake in rejecting a goal during the injury time of the second half at a score of 6-0.
In this case, a recording of the audio traffic between the VAR and the referee showed that the VAR only paid attention to incoming players who participated in the game. However, participation in the game is not a relevant criterion for retaking a penalty kick. It's just about whether the players walk in too early. By not looking at Anderlecht's players, the VAR and the referee misapplied the rules. This decision has profoundly influenced the game, now that Genk was deprived of a scoring opportunity at a 0-0 score in the 22nd minute. The Disciplinary Council therefore decides that the match should be replayed.
Unlike in Belgium, the KNVB has no specific committee where clubs can appeal referee decisions. If they want to challenge a decision, the club will have to go to court. This happened, for example, after the referee in the cup match between FC Lisse and HSV Hoek used the wrong order when taking the penalties. The KNVB decided that the entire penalty shootout should take place again and the judge upheld that decision.
Another example concerns the decision match between HVV and Voorschoten '97. In the first half, the referee had given the Voorschoten player wearing number 2 a yellow card, but accidentally noted it as HVV's number 2. So when the latter received his (first) yellow card in extra time, he was immediately presented with the red card. The judge finally intervened (a long time after the end of the post-competition) and ruled that the match had to be replayed from the moment of the arbitral error. Ultimately, due to the absences of many players (it was now a summer break) and the completed post-competition, this did not happen, but HVV's relegation was reversed.
Discussing referee decisions is a big hobby for coaches, analysts and football enthusiasts. Will this discussion move to the courtroom? It won't go that fast. After all, that would be highly undesirable for sport. It leads to delays in competitions, causing skewed rankings and harming the interests of other participants in the competition. Previous cases show that only in very exceptional cases, such as an administrative error, a match should be (partially) replayed. These cases also show that the Disciplinary Council and the Dutch court apply the field-of-play principle less strictly than the CAS. The fact is that the case between Genk and Anderlecht has given new attention to the appeal. RWDM has now announced that they want to overplay their match against KV Mechelen after the referee did not award a penalty after a handball by Mechelen player Hairemans. The chance that this profession will also be successful is small, but not shot is always wrong.
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