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Comment by jghn | Hacker News Reader

I've never understood the desire for a human element in officiating. It's not like people sat around hundreds of years ago and said, "You know what would really make this game fun to watch? Completely flawed referees/umpires/officials!"

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The main thing is the amount of time it takes to get a call right. If there is technology available to make certain calls immediately, then I'm all for it.

Unfortunately with video review, it can take several minutes to look over which completely disrupts the pace of the game and any momentum one team may have had.

Yeah, that I definitely get. It's the people who legitimately believe that blown calls now and then are a benefit to the game.

Yes, and specifically in the case of Premier League it seemed to cause problems with needing extra stoppage time. There was a recent match experimenting with video replay, and one side's manager complained that more extra minutes should have been added because of the video review, but wasn't (presumably because of TV advertising scheduled).

Yeah it's definitely odd, and rationally makes zero sense as you've pointed out, but feelings are weird, especially feelings of nostalgia and tradition.

Theoretically they’re playing the same game that’s being played in high schools, parks, etc where the officiating has to be human (currently.)

It is part of the fun, though. What percentage of soccer conversations include some opinion about the officiating?

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