From Ben Craven, Edinburgh, UK
We could do away with video reviews in sport if we framed the rules in terms of the officials’ perception of events rather than the events themselves. The sport of race walking did just that when photography showed that the foul of “lifting” – losing contact with the ground – happened far more often than had been thought. In 1996, the rules were changed to say that no loss of contact visible to the unaided human eye should occur. This principle could be applied in other sports, using phrases like “if it appears to the referee that…”. Video evidence would become irrelevant.
