On Fairness, Justice, and VAR: Russia 2018 and France 2019 World Cups in a Historical Perspective

by Jorge Tovar

Overview

This book analyzes the 2018 and 2019 men's and women's World Cups to understand how the use of Video Assistant Referees (VAR) affected each tournament. Unlike goal technology, where the decision is entirely left to the machine's algorithm, the VAR still has a human component, making it prone to errors and controversies. Building on the theories of justice, the book quantitatively reviews event-level data while using a historical perspective to depict a novel approach to the effects of VAR in major soccer tournaments. The six chapters examine the use of VAR, discuss when it was not used (but maybe should have been used), and explore how the World Cup evolved with the new technology. Combining the VAR events of 2018 and 2019 with comparable situations from past World Cups guides the reader into debating the meaning of justice and the potential of ever achieving fairness in soccer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030848149
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	11/01/2021
Series:	Palgrave Pivots in Sports Economics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jorge Tovar is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia. He has held previous appointments as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University (2011) and as the Tinker-NAVE Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2020).

Table of Contents

1.Introduction.- 2.Justice and fairness.- 3.The debate of VAR.- 4.VAR in Russia 2018 and France 2019.- 5.Why and how to improve VAR.- 6.Conclusion.