The former MLS referee turned on-air analyst talks VAR, moving from pitch to booth, why former pros could become officials
Christina Unkel is the one everyone looks to for explanations. In the soccer world, refereeing decisions seem to dominate the discourse. Who got it wrong? Who got it right? Was your club fleeced? Is there an agenda? Unkel is the one charged with explaining it all every week.
For Unkel, CBS Sports on-air rules analyst, it can sometimes be a little tiring.
"There is a miscommunication and a misconnection from the high level of football all the way down to the grassroots," she tells GOAL. "My job here is to create visibility – I hate using the word transparency, I think that's politically charged and it sounds like you're also hiding something."
But she also understands how important her job is. With so much vitriol directed at officials, she is often the lone voice in the room offering a referee's perspective, something that is often clear when she's brought in on Champions League matchdays to provide valuable insight. CBS will broadcast, and Parmount+ will stream, Barcelona vs Inter in a Champions League semifinal on Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET.
"Nobody thinks about the referee until it matters," she says. "Nobody knows what goes into getting the decisions correct in the first place. If we give visibility into this world, I think more people would want to referee."
Of course, VAR is always the hot topic. There are enumerate contentious decisions across global football every day, if not every game. Everyone seems to have an opinion. Unkel, a former MLS referee, was around when the league was first trialing the technology. She knows how difficult it can be to operate.
"You're taking all of those things that you feel as a ref, and now you're sitting in a room somewhere far away in a center… and it's cold and it's dark, and it's you and a video operator," she adds.
She's one of the few in the media sphere who can speak to the issues with any real authority. Although referees are becoming more involved in broadcasting, they still tend to be outside of the mainstream. Unkel, in her own way, is speaking for all of them.
The rules analyst talked about VAR, referee transparency, former players becoming officials, and more in Mic'd Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL US taps into the perspective of broadcasters, analysts, and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
- Mary Kouw, CBS
ON SUPPORTING REFEREES
GOAL: Do you almost feel like you're playing "devil's advocate" when you're supporting referees?
UNKEL: I don't feel like that, but I can definitely see how it's perceived like that – like, I'm perceived as the other voice in the room. I see people go at it in England, and say [referee analysts] don't want to advocate against their friends. I don't know, because I don't really hear their commentary. I'm not going to make a statement on their behalf. But people are already coming in with a perceived stereotype, which is typical. As a female referee, I'd step into a men's game, and they're like "Oh great, a woman." So it's just how life has conditioned me that you always have to prove yourself and overcome things that are unfair – even if it's conscious or subconscious.
GOAL: So, what is it like playing that role?
UNKEL: I don't really like when before we record live or go on tape, people ask my opinion or ask me my questions or thoughts, or if they tell me what they're about to say. I'm like "no, keep it for live TV!" It's just not as top secret as everyone thinks it is. For me, it's not advocating. It's just like, there is a miscommunication and a misconnection from the high level of football all the way down to the grassroots. My job here is to create visibility – I hate using the word "transparency", I think that's politically charged, and it sounds like you're also hiding something. Nobody thinks about the referee until it matters. Nobody knows what goes into getting the decisions correct in the first place. If we give visibility into this world, I think more people would want to referee. Even Jose Mourinho, for example, would say refereeing is one of the hardest jobs in football. So everyone acknowledges that point.
But managers at the highest level have more stakes than your grassroots coaches, because it's their job, it's millions of dollars, it's getting promoted or relegated. At the same time, they have to step in and understand they're role models for younger kids. Professional athletes are like, "I get to do whatever I want" and I'm like, "Sure, but you're reflecting on younger kids."
GOAL: So they should take more responsibility?
UNKEL: Yeah. If you don't care to step in and want to be represented as a role model, then you're kind of missing the special element of being a professional athlete or a professional coach in the first place. FIFA statistics have it based on the number of kids who play global organized soccer, it's about 250 million. And then the number of registered professional players to date is like around 124,000 or 123,000. That comes out to point like .005 percent of kids around the world can ever become professional footballers in the first place. So when those people step into those spaces and say "I can do whatever the hell I want. I can yell at referees. It doesn't matter," for me, that just means they miss this privilege or this gift that they have that they're giving to the rest of the game. They're also part of the fabric of everything. There's no reason why there's ref abuse and assault. There's no reason why people don't want to sign up. It's all interconnected, and that's the beauty of our ecosystem, but the fragility of it as well.
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- Getty Images Sport
ON VAR DECISIONS
GOAL: How difficult is it to be a VAR official?
UNKEL: It's difficult when you first start. I was one of the few first referees trained to do it in Major League Soccer when we went live. MLS was the first live organization that went live with VAR. We trained for a year and a half leading up to that, because we were developing the trial of VAR for the rest of the world. So FIFA was very, very involved. That's actually when Howard Webb came over. He came as the VAR manager, and none of us knew what we were doing, because we were creating the protocols from the beginning. So that's why with VAR, when I go into it and I can explain it at such intricacies, is because it was drilled into my head. But most importantly, the purpose, and effectively, the goal, was drilled into our heads. Because as we were creating the protocols, it all had to reflect back to "minimum intervention, maximum benefit." We had to think about, "OK, if we're going to start creating protocols, how do we prevent and avoid a slippery slope?"
GOAL: So, how do you balance that?
UNKEL: Well, with the foul against [Kylian] Mbappe by Declan Rice [in the Champions League quarterfinal] and the overturn recommendation, everyone's going on and on, saying VAR is just there to correct all the wrongs. I'm like, "Well, OK, no, because then you guys are going to complain, because we're going to stop every two seconds." But that's that's kind of a deeper conversation. I think the difficulties with VAR are particular, because we have not yet had a generation that's done it. You're now asking officials who have spent so long to get to the highest levels, who have spent over 10 years intentionally moving up that ladder. You're not going to grab someone who just did youth sports. You're going to grab somebody who's been working in the amateur leagues, in the third division, second divisions, etc. Some people move up quicker based on just raw, natural talent. Some move slower. That's why there's a push to get former athletes or professional players to start refereeing, because there's a lot of the game that you can save from that educational standpoint.
It takes 10 years to develop a referee to even step into First Division football. So you're using all of this experience and this training and this natural instinct to officiate, and now you're saying, "Hey, all of that stuff you know, from the feel and the smell of the grass, and the movement and the energy, and the impact and knowing when the game is about to burst." You're taking all of those things that you feel as a ref, and now you're sitting in a room somewhere far away in a center… and it's cold and it's dark, and it's you and a video operator. So you now become a producer. Many of us of never done production. We've never done TV. We've never said "Give me low camera, give me behind." That's a whole other skill set. So now you have to learn that skill set.
So if you have a really good video operator, that person is going to be like, "Bro, you need to see this. I'll give you the clips… know what you're looking for, but you don't know how to call the clips that you need to see." So the video operator is incredibly important. Obviously, the increased number of games, the increased number of video operators, many of them, at least here stateside, don't know soccer. They know American football. They know these other things.
We have somebody who doesn't potentially know what offside is, but they know how to do videos and throw things up. So there's so many different elements, from learning how to become a mini-producer, to praying to god you have an incredible video operator. You compound learning a new trait, a new job, a new skillset, with learning how to manage somebody else, within learning how to say, "OK, I might think this is wrong from a personal standpoint, but does the rest of the world think it's wrong? Would 75 to 80 percent of a referee group, if we were sitting in a room and he threw it on the board, say, 'Oh yeah, that's clearly wrong?'" Although the Arsenal-Real Madrid clip took way too long for the five minutes… it's not easy.
- Paramount+
ON VAR AND THE MEDIA
GOAL: So there's a disconnect between getting a decision and then communicating it?
UNKEL: I do think we can be a lot clearer with our communication as to what it is our group's checking. That also means that there's going to have to be somebody behind the VAR. We've done this before where it goes to media that somebody's like, "Hey, the referee is checking for a potential penalty." That happens here in Major League Soccer. So then there's that whole layer of communication to the media. But I think if we find and we get a little bit more systemized – and by the way, it's very black and white and linear – in how you do that process to ensure that you don't miss an angle, you don't miss a video tape, then you basically kind of have to say, "OK, we've checked all the things. I have no grace if I miss something. And I've had the luxury of millions of dollars of investment in technology, I can't miss anything in the booth."
And then you add that extra layer of – not that it decides it – but "Am I too sanitized in this booth? That I'm not appreciating the feel of the game?" You're not sitting there listening to the audio or the commentators or hearing the crowd or the energy – maybe I'm refereeing too black and white up here as well too. So there's a mix, from psychological to job skill traits to communication back and forth. Like with some of these, I wish they would say, "Hey, the referee is checking the ultimate decision on this. But leading up to it, there's a two offsides and there's something else" so that people understand why it takes a little bit longer than 30 seconds.
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- Imagn
ON 'RE-REFEREEING'
GOAL: I was having a conversation with another referee and he said a lot of similar things about VAR, but specifically highlighted the feel of the game as something that could affect it. Do you agree with that?
UNKEL: Yes. That can mess you up, too, from a VAR perspective. My perspective is to effectively just find something that's a clear and obvious error that 80 percent of people would say is wrong. Like Maradona's Hand of God, or a player didn't make contact on their boot, they just went through someone's ankle. So from the VAR you're looking at it from a factual scenario. What I say can get you in trouble is there's a lot of referees who've transitioned from the field into the VAR Booth who are like, "Well, in this game, I wouldn't have done this, because, this is a final" or "This is a knockout game in the Champions League, so we're going to let this go a little bit more." But ultimately, that's not your decision. Your job is to provide facts.
So now you have video assistant referees. We call them assistant referees, which is ironic, because the person in this main seat is a trained center referee. It is two different mindsets. When you're on the field and you lead a team and you are the center referee, your assistant referees provide input, advice and information. An offside flag doesn't always mean it's offside. It's data for the referee. The referee makes the final decision. And now, you're having people who are used to making the final decision in the booth, who are supposed to be like an assistant referee – in the sense that you're providing data and information to that center referee, for that center referee to make the decision. But now, they're going to be sending people down saying, "In my game, I would have done this." Well, that's nice, good for you, but you now have to realize you are support and secondary.
That is where I personally think there has been a little bit of a struggle. When I'm looking at the Premier League and everyone's like, "Why are they struggling down there?" I think it may be because you have a lot of referees in the booth, the VAR, who used to being in the center, saying, "I would have refereed it like this, so I'm not going to send this down." And then we're all sitting there like, "How the hell did that not get sent down?" Because they're not looking at it from black and white. You have to recalibrate who you were as a person and your identity as a referee to realize you're now the fourth official. Effectively, you're now an assistant referee. You're not the center referee. And that's a completely different psychological thing.