Time to show FIFA a red card

Now soccer is headed down the same pernicious path.

In 18 months of worldwide trials - including in the Bundesliga, Serie A and at the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia - VAR reviews have proven to be much slower than anticipated and communication in the stadiums has been hit-and-miss, at best.

"Obviously, it is not a perfect system and we are not going to reach 100 percent perfection," Infantino said in making the announcement. "What we definitely want to do is help."

FIFA should be shown a red card, because a recent British survey indicated that even the most experienced VAR officials - several of whom have handled many more matches than most referees who will work at the 64-game World Cup - aren't sold on it.

FIFA's solution is to ignore the experienced guys and train a new batch of 36 refs, plus their teams of assistants, for duty in Russia. And most of them are from countries and regions that don't use VAR in their domestic leagues.

Until video reviews came into vogue, much of the lure and lore of every major sport was the random impact of human error. In soccer, for better or worse, that's what created the legends surrounding Geoff Hurst's goal for England against West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final, Maradona's "Hand of God" goal against England in the'86 WC quarterfinal and the blatant handball by France's Thierry Henry against Ireland in their WC qualifying playoff in Paris in 2009.

Human mistakes by players, coaches and referees have always played a major role in the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Using microchips and lasers to correct them just doesn't seem, well ... sporting.