Indeed, from a VAR perspective, an immediate explanation might quickly justify decisions. Whether that’s practical remains to be seen, particularly given the frustration arising from the time it takes to use VAR, let alone offer an explanation.

However, cricket and hockey video umpires/referees quickly and successfully justify decision-making in their sports as they ‘roll the tape’, so there’s scope to making it work, although that’s very different from the on-field official.

CONS

One of the big arguments against ref mics in football is the surrounding noise which gets picked up on the coverage, often expletives and abuse.

Sadly, the attitude of competitors towards referees in football is very different to a lot of other sports and that’s not easily reversed.

The example of rugby union, where the ref mic works well, is enabled by the players’ respect towards the officials. That’s not to say expletives aren’t picked up in other sports, just ask Essendon’s Brendon Goddard who was caught calling North Melbourne’s Jack Ziebell a “weak c---“ in 2015. We know cricket’s Stump Cam issues too.

But football’s culture of crowding the referee and protesting decisions isn’t one easily fixed and there’s a big fear about the ‘colourful language’ which would be picked up by a ref mic.

Way back in 1989, English referee David Elleray wore a mic during an Arsenal-Millwall match for a documentary which picked up lots of ugly expletive-laden abuse, with Gunners defender Tony Adams caught calling the ref a “cheat”.