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A founders’ agreement/shareholders’ agreement is a contract between the co-founders of a company. It essentially sets out the ownership, duties, responsibilities, and the initial investment of each founder.It is wise to enter into such an agreement during the incorporation stage of the enterprise. This would ensure that the roles of each founder are clearly laid-out.The purpose of a contract is to memorialize the agreement of the parties in writing, so there is no confusion as to each party's obligation under the contract. Therefore, a written contract should be drafted with the aid and assistance of a legal professional so as to create a watertight agreement without any loopholes.Everyone wants to save money and online legal document libraries may be enticing, but you may not understand the terms that you are putting in your document. It's hard to know what goes in and what should be taken out when you are trying to customize a document to your needs without legal training. Ultimately, you may end up creating an invalid and non-enforceable agreement which will be of no use.If you plan to use a template, consider having an experienced attorney review it to protect your interests and have a legally sound agreement to avoid the risk of costing yourself and/or your business more money in the long run.The most important reason for entering into a Founders’ contract is that it avoids any future ambiguity that might arise with respect to the enterprise.Founders’ Agreement sets the expectations and goals of the founders and assigns each a specific role and responsibility to each founder. It identifies possible hurdles and provides precautionary measures.Keeping in mind the above reasons, entering into a formal, written, and legally enforceable agreement is advisable.Before entering into a founders’ agreement, certain questions need to be addressed and answered by the founders.The co-founders must engage in honest discussions about issues like ownership, title, compensation, the board of directors, etc.For arriving at a detailed and conclusive answer in respect of such questions, it’s helpful to examine the components of a founders’ agreement.Essentials of a Founders’ AgreementSome important clauses and components of a founders’ agreement are discussed below:1. DefinitionsApart from the name of the founders and the enterprise, it is advisable to define the potential of the business venture with utmost clarity. This should be done by way of clearly laid out terms defining the vision, goals and proposed milestones of the business.2. CapitalThis clause (or clauses) should state the initial investment made by each founder, as well as any additional capital contributions that may be needed in the future from the founders for expansion and operational needs.3. OwnershipOwnership clause deals with equity held by each founder, either by percentage, or the number of shares held. The contribution provided and the role played by each co-founder helps determine his share in equity.4. Roles and responsibilitiesThis clause is crucial to pre-empt any ambiguity by clearly specifying the role of each founder.Further, every co-founder owes a certain duty and responsibility to each co-founder as well as the enterprise; and the same must be accounted for.Roles and Responsibilities clause will also play a significant role in determining the decision-making power of each founder, as well as possible future relations with the Board of Directors.5. CompensationThe agreement should also specify the amount compensation provided to and/or salary drawn by each co-founder, as well as the manner of reimbursement of expenses.6. Exit of foundersAlthough this is a situation that every startup would want to avoid, in order to prevent any unpleasantness in the future, an exit clause must form part of a founders’ agreement.There must be a provision for the case(s) in which a co-founder may choose to leave the enterprise or be removed from the company. Reasons for the same may vary and may include reasons of death and illness.Thus, it will prove to be advantageous to specify a procedure governing every conceivable situation.7. DissolutionThis is an essential clause with respect to the possibility of winding-up and liquidation of the enterprise. The manner of distribution of money and other resources amongst the founders in the event of liquidation must be provided.8. Dispute resolutionIt is always helpful to create a mechanism to provide for the resolution of any disputes that might arise in the future.Clauses specifying the manner of resolution of certain disputes may prove to be of aid if the founders wish to avoid a court case to the best possible extent.9. Miscellaneous provisionsProvisions like non-compete clauses, assignment of Intellectual Property rights, loans from founders, severability, etc., usually feature in such contracts.A non-compete clause is meant to prevent a co-founder from quitting and starting a similar business in the future.If the company has availed any loan from the founders, the manner of repayment of loan and payment of interest on the loan must be defined.To avoid future disputes, intellectual property rights of a business should be jointly assigned in the name of all the co-founders. Not only does it serve as protection against disputes, it also serves as the acknowledgment of the wit and effort of each founder that goes into the business.A severability clause states that the terms of a contract are severable, that is, detachable from each other. Incorporating a severability clause into the agreement helps because even if some terms of a contract are rendered invalid due to any reason, it does not make the entire contract invalid.Are you looking for an attorney drafted agreement?Visit PocketLawyer to get any kind of legal agreements drafted and reviewed from an experienced attorney at affordable cost.

Q. Was the FBI ever caught fabricating evidence to prosecute someone?CSI Is a Lie: Forensic Investigations Are Overdue for ReformMIKE GROLL/APForty years ago, Bob Dylan reacted to the conviction of an innocent man by singing that he couldn't help but feel ashamed "to live in a land where justice is a game." Over the ensuing decades, the criminal-justice system has improved in many significant ways. But shame is still an appropriate response to it, as the Washington Post made clear Saturday in an article that begins with a punch to the gut: "Nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000," the newspaper reported, adding that "the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death."The article notes that the admissions from the FBI and Department of Justice "confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques—like hair and bite-mark comparisons—that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989."That link points back to 2012 coverage of problems with FBI forensic analysis, but the existence of shoddy forensics has been so clear for so long in so many different state and local jurisdictions that the following conclusion is difficult to avoid: Neither police agencies nor prosecutors are willing to call for the sorts of reforms that would prevent many innocents from being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, and neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party will force their hands.Ignorance of the problem is no longer an acceptable excuse.Among recent examples:At a Massachusetts drug lab, a chemist was sent to prison after admittingthat she faked the results in perhaps tens of thousands of drug cases, calling into question thousands of drug convictions that ended with people in prison.In St. Paul, Minnesota, an independent review of the crime lab found "major errors in almost every area of the lab's work, including the fingerprint and crime scene evidence processing that has continued after the lab's drug testing was stopped in July. The failures include sloppy documentation, dirty equipment, faulty techniques and ignorance of basic scientific procedures ...Lab employees even used Wikipedia as a 'technical reference' in at least one drug case ... The lab lacked any clean area designated for the review and collection of DNA evidence. The lab stored crime-scene photos on a computer that anyone could access without a password."In Colorado, the Office of the Attorney General documented inadequate training and alarming lapses at a lab that measured the amount of alcohol in blood.In Detroit, police shut down their crime laboratory "after an audit uncovered serious errors in numerous cases. The audit said sloppy work had probably resulted in wrongful convictions, and officials expect a wave of appeals ... auditors re-examined 200 randomly selected shooting cases and found serious errors in 19."In Philadelphia, "three trace-evidence technicians have flunked a routine test administered to uphold the police crime lab’s accreditation, police brass announced Tuesday. Each technician tests hundreds of pieces of evidence a year for traces of blood and semen, so if investigators determine that the methods are problematic, it could throw countless court cases into question ... "In North Carolina, "agents withheld exculpatory evidence or distorted evidence in more than 230 cases over a 16-year period. Three of those cases resulted in execution. There was widespread lying, corruption, and pressure from prosecutors and other law-enforcement officials on crime lab analyststo produce results that would help secure convictions. And the pressure worked."That is a highly incomplete sample from just the last decade.Go back a bit farther to 2004 and you'll find a New York Times report on major problems in a Texas metropolis:The police crime laboratory in Houston, already reeling from a scandal that has led to retesting of evidence in 360 cases, now faces a much larger crisis that could involve many thousands of cases over 25 years. Six independent forensic scientists, in a report to be filed in a Houston state court today, said that a crime laboratory official—because he either lacked basic knowledge of blood typing or gave false testimony—helped convict an innocent man of rape in 1987.The panel concluded that crime laboratory officials might have offered ''similarly false and scientifically unsound'' reports and testimony in other cases, and it called for a comprehensive audit spanning decades to re-examine the results of a broad array of rudimentary tests on blood, semen and other bodily fluids. Elizabeth A. Johnson, a former director of the DNA laboratory at the Harris County medical examiner's office in Houston, said the task would be daunting. ''A conservative number would probably be 5,000 to 10,000 cases,'' Dr. Johnson said. ''If you add in hair, it's off the board.''There are many more horror stories in most every state.In the face of this national scandal, two elected officials have distinguished themselves at the federal level: senators John Cornyn and Patrick Leahy (a former prosecutor), cosponsors of forensic reform legislation that offers significant improvements. In short, their bill would strengthen federal oversight of crime labs, invest in research into best practices, and provide a training and certification regime. But their bill doesn't go far enough, especially given the federal government's own problems with shoddy forensic science.The most compelling reform agenda that I've come across was summarized seven years ago by Radley Balko, an investigative journalist with significant experience unmasking shoddy crime-scene analysis, and Roger Koppl, director of the Institute for Forensic Science Administration at Fairleigh Dickinson University. They focused on a huge conflict of interest at the core of the current system—the fact that forensic lab analysts often work for the police and prosecutors:One major barrier to improving forensic evidence in criminal trials is that in most jurisdictions, the state has a monopoly on experts. Crime lab analystsand medical examiners (and to a lesser extent DNA technicians) typically work for the government and are generally seen as part of the prosecution's "team," much like the police and investigators. Yes, science is science, and it would be nice to believe that scientists will always get at the truth no matter whom they report to. But studies have consistently shown that even conscientious scientists can be affected by cognitive bias. A scientist whose job performance is evaluated by a senior official in the district attorney or state attorney general's office may feel subtle pressure to return results that produce convictions. In cases in which district attorneys' offices contract work out to private labs, the labs may feel pressure—even if it's not explicit (though sometimes it is)—to produce favorable results in order to continue the relationship.Indeed, according to Business Insider, "In many jurisdictions, crime labs receive money for each conviction they contribute to, according to a 2013 study in the journal Criminal Justice Ethics. Statutes in Florida and North Carolina mandate that judges provide labs with remuneration “upon conviction” and only upon conviction. Alabama, Arizona, California, Missouri, Wisconsin, Tennessee, New Mexico, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Virginia are among the states with similar provisions."Five specific reforms that Balko and Koppl urge are as follows:Forensic counsel for the indigent. In many jurisdictions, indigent defendants aren't given access to their own forensic experts. As a result, the only expert witnesses are often testifying for the prosecution ... This undermines the whole adversarial basis of our criminal-justice system. Indigent defendants should be given vouchers to hire their own experts, who can review the forensic analysis and conclusions of each prosecution expert.Expert independence. Crime labs, DNA labs, and medical examinersshouldn't serve under the same bureaucracy as district attorneys and police agencies. If these experts must work for the government, they should report to an independent state agency, if not the courts themselves. There should be a wall of separation between analysis and interpretation ... When the same expert performs both the analysis and interpretation, defense experts are often at a disadvantage, having to rely on the notes and photos of the same expert whose testimony they're disputing.Rivalrous redundancy. Whether the state uses its own labs or contracts out to private labs, evidence should periodically and systematically be sent out to yet another competing lab for verification. The state's labs should be made aware that their work will occasionally be checked but not told when. In addition to helping discover errors that might otherwise go undetected, the introduction of competition to government labs would all but remove any subconscious incentive to appease police and prosecutors and would strengthen the incentive for a more objective analysis.Statistical analysis. The results from forensic labs should be regularly analyzed for statistical anomalies. Labs producing unusually high match rates should throw up red flags for further examination. For example, in 2004 Houston medical examiner Patricia Moore was found to have diagnosed shaken-baby syndrome in infant autopsies at a rate several times higher than the national average. This led to an investigation—and the reopening of several convictions that had relied on Moore's testimony.Mask the evidence. A 2006 U.K. study by researchers at the University of Southampton found that the error rate of fingerprint analysts doubled when they were first told the circumstances of the case they were working on. Crime lab technicians and medical examiners should never be permitted to consult with police or prosecutors before performing their analysis. A dramatic child-murder case, for example, may induce a greater subconscious bias to find a match than a burglary case. To the extent that it's possible, evidence should be stripped of all context before being sent to the lab. Ideally, state or city officials might hire a neutral "evidence shepherd," whose job would be to deliver crime-scene evidence to the labs and oversee the process of periodically sending evidence to secondary labs for verification.As Senator Leahy said when issuing his own call for reform, improving the accuracy and reliability of forensics isn't just a worthy endeavor because it will prevent innocent people from being wrongly convicted and imprisoned—it is "a good investment that will lead to fewer trials and appeals and will reduce crime by ensuring that those who commit serious offenses are promptly captured and convicted."But despite the fact that egregious problems have occurred in hundreds of crime labs throughout the U.S., affecting tens of thousands of cases or more, and perhaps even sending innocent men to their deaths, most police officials and prosecutors remain unwilling to acknowledge what we should now see clearly: They're incapable of running crime labs that reliably protect the innocent and identify the guilty, in large part because their conflicts of interest and biases are insurmountable.Imagine what most prosecutors would say if, henceforth, crime lab analystsand medical examiners were to report to the most senior official in the relevant public defender's office. Yet they happily embrace the inverse and call it a justice system.The results speak for themselves.We want to hear what you think. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected] FRIEDERSDORF is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.Tainting EvidenceFBI Caught Fabricating Seth Rich ‘Robbery’ StoryBombshell Report: McCabe Altered FBI Notes To Frame Flynn

Yes, I think we can. VAR was a central plank of Gianni Infantino’s election manifesto for the FIFA Presidency. So, much so in fact, that World Soccer and others have claimed that if VAR fails Infantino would follow in disgrace. As such, it probably won’t be allowed to fail.I’ve written about the rubberstamping of VAR here: Video assistance for referees – An incomplete pictureVideo assistance for referees – An incomplete pictureBy Greg GordonOn 2017-03-04Referee Viktor Kassai utilises video replay technology at the Club World Championships in JapanIn his haste to draw a line under the blighted tenure of Sepp Blatter, new FIFA president Gianni Infantino may have scored an own goal with his hasty desire to usher in Video Assistant Referee technology to elite competition.You can see the thinking. Experiments with video assistance for referees have already started as part of the fulfilment of Infantino’s election promise that FIFA get back to the business of football after years mired in negative publicity and allegations of sleaze.Live experiments are taking place in around 20 competitions this year, including the Confederations Cup in Russia which serves as the 2018 World Cup test event. England plans to allow referees to defer to replays in the FA Cup next season from the third round in January when Premier League teams enter the fray.As Keir Radnedge says in his always astute World Soccer column that greeted Infantino’s debut at the IFAB summit in Wales in March 2016: “Infantino, eight days installed as president of the world federation on a high-profile platform of “bringing FIFA back to football rather than politics,” had every reason for wanting to be a cheerleader for a move which offers a revolution at the highest level of the game.”It was announced in January 2016, that some very specific situations only, will be subjected to ref’s video-assistance.They are:1) Verifying disputed goals (including offside and goal-line calls),2) For awarding red and yellow cards,3) To aid correct penalty decisions,4) To resolve cases of mistaken identity when an offence has been committed.Fourth substituteIn addition, following the International Football Association Board (IFAB) conference of March 5th in Wales 2016, there are now also plans to allow a fourth substitute in a period of extra time in cup competition and to abolish the the so-called “triple punishment” of a red card, penalty and suspension for any player denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity within the penalty area.Calls for video assistance have echoed down the ages. England’s disputed third goal in the 1966 World Cup Final, Frank Lampard’s wrongly disallowed World Cup goal v Germany in 2010 and the so-called ‘ghost goal’ by Liverpool’s Luis Garcia v Chelsea in the 2005 Champions League Semi Final are prominent controversies.The Dutch federation have been driving the move to video assistance with a two-year pilot of their own. They presented their findings to IFAB in 2015 but a decision was delayed until the crowning of the in-favour Infantino in February, last year.But in their haste to move forwards in pursuit of a quick PR win, Gianni Infantino and by extension IFAB, the ideas wing of world football, may be storing up a heap of trouble for the future.At best IFAB have a chequered history. The 1886-founded International Football Association Board have maintained a simple remit since their first meeting in London’s Holborn Viaduct was attended by representatives of the UK’s home associations. That remit is, according to FIFA, to whom IFAB are affiliated, is ‘to keep a careful watch on the laws of football in order to ensure that it remains the world’s most popular sport.’Understandably perhaps, IFAB also have a reputation for being conservative in nature, thorough in discussion and slow in execution, but there is a distinct lack of that trademark rigour here in the drive for video assistance for referees.And it is worth bearing in mind that even IFAB’s legendary caution has not prevented them adding as many ‘misses’ as ‘hits’ to their roster of football law changes in the last 125 years.So should we be nervous about this week’s IFAB statement from Wembley?According to the FA’s Martin Glenn, IFAB are now willing to offer flexibility to individual countries ‘to tweak their football laws’.Surely this must be the subject of some trepidation on the part of interested observers because on the face of it this is incredible as a statement of intent?Martin Glenn, the English Football Association chief executive, who hosted the most recent 131st AGM of IFAB at Wembley in March 2017, says that his venerable organisation should forthwith be known as the ‘football promotion organisation, not the football prevention organisation.’So, for example, temporary dismissals – known as sin bins in rugby – will be allowed for yellow card offences in youth, grass-roots and disability soccer, for those that want them introduced.“It encourages better behaviour,” Glenn said. “We can’t put that in the elite end of the game because that has to look similar all over the world but the far bigger picture is – let countries try different things to promote football.”IFAB has also given national federations the freedom to decide how many substitutions are allowed in “lower levels of football,” but not games involving the first teams of top-flight competitions and senior international sides.FA Cup trialEngland’s FA Cup will be used to trial another potential law change next year, when VARs (Video Assistant Referees) will be used from the third round onwards. This is on the proviso that the host stadium can accommodate enough camera positions.Will this lead to different games in the same competition being refereed to a different standard when the FA Cup gets serious? Maybe yes, maybe no.The problem is though, that football’s fundamental appeal lies with the standardisation of easily understood rules – at every level of the game. Pull at that piece of string, with local or individual competition tweaks, and you could well see that pleasing cohesion unravel as one global game becomes a series of local ones. Football, in its desire to appear responsive, proactive and modern in the post-Blatter era is in danger of answering a question that nobody is asking. And the effects could be both unintended and broadly negative.The use of a fourth extra time substitute will also be made available to managers in the FA Cup Quarter Finals in March 2017.Speaking to reporters after the IFAB Annual General Meeting, Martin Glenn said: “With the Cup now adopting a straight knockout format, the introduction of a fourth substitute in extra-time will bring extra intrigue and interest.“From a technical point of view, it will be interesting to see how managers use the chance to make an additional substitution in such high-profile games and the impact it has on the final result.”So far it has only led to confusion, leading to a touchline altercation between the confused bosses of Ayr United and Queens Park, the referee and a female linesman (none of whom appeared sure of the protocol) when the innovation was recently trialled in a Scottish Cup fourth round replay tie at Hampden Park, Glasgow, in January.But of course, such things are mere teething problems – questions of effective communication for the full roll-out.Nonetheless, the implementation of the latest football innovations does not exist in isolation. Indeed it must be viewed through the prism of IFAB’s track record for effective change management.In the credit column, innovations such as allowing access to two and then three substitutes in play (1970) and (1995), a red card for dangerous, lunging tackles (1998) and banning keepers handling back-passes (1992), a law change instigated by Michel Platini, have all made football faster, safer and a better spectacle for fans.The Golden Goal (2002) designed to invigorate extra time periods (yet doing the exact opposite), pointless experiments with kick-ins instead of throw-ins, and the NASL 35-yard anti-offside line, were abject failures, total turkeys.The now due for alteration, so-called “triple punishment” (Law 12) of a sending off, penalty and suspension for the denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity within the penalty area, and football’s ongoing inability to find an offside law that is agreeable to all stakeholders in football, have been IFAB’s biggest decision to make. And a decision long overdue too. Football needs offside for tactical and cultural reasons, and its reinterpretation looks like a task to far for Infantino’s poster boy Marco Van Basten.The easy PR hit pursuit of video assistance for refs may not prove to be another turkey but it would become an albatross to hang around the neck of Gianni Infantino, as its greatest advocate, should it fail or flounder.As World Soccer’s Keir Radnedge said in March: “The four British home FAs plus FIFA have yet to decide whether the experiments should be conducted with a ‘man in a van’ or at pitch-side; whether the referee should liaise only via audio link or run to a screen; and how to deal with debatable incidents while play flows on.”A year on, is there any definitive sense that there now exists what might be called ‘a rock solid plan’ in place? Because as long as there isn’t one, then we’ll have the cart placed before the horse.Regardless, video assistance is coming. And imminently thanks to Infantino’s urgency.A proposal from England’s FA to give coaches a ‘joker’ in the form of a restricted right of appeal on decisions was debated and discarded last year; but says Keir Radnedge: “such a complex issue should never even have reached the substantive debate of the annual meeting in Cardiff.”Typically IFAB, as the anointed conservative guardians of the game, would usually be seen to notably dampen down expectation not making a move until all i’s were dotted and all t’s crossed. But here we have an unusual situation with Infantino, a Swiss-born lawyer appearing to be distinctly playing against type. Has he failed to consider the small print while making his IFAB debut in Cardiff and with IFAB following it through in London, a year on?“This has all my support and backing. Today we have taken really a historic decision for football. FIFA and IFAB – IFAB and FIFA – are now leading the debate and not stopping the debate,” The 45-year-old FIFA President told IFAB in Cardiff 2016, while notably appearing to stop debate and sanction action instead.FIFA president Gianni Infantino © FIFAThe post-Blatter eraNo-one, IFAB watchers like Radnedge say, is even considering the possibility that as good an idea as video assistance could be that there is no fallback position and that it could be ignominiously scrapped if tests prove negative or systems unworkable.It’s five years since IFAB first rubber-stamped the introduction of technology into football. And this was despite significant opposition from Sepp Blatter, Infantino’s predecessor.Initially, evaluations were restricted to goal-line technology – determining whether (or not) the ball crossed the line. And the new man is keen to, use this platform at last year’s Cardiff IFAB meet-up, to underline the change in regimes and demonstrate that FIFA has embraced a “new era” post-Blatter.As such, Infantino, who is presumably not a stupid man as a qualified lawyer and former Secretary General of the International Center for Sports Studies (CIES) at the University of Neuchâtel, appears to be playing a high stakes game. In his attempts to curry instant favour as a football moderniser, as opposed to a back-room politician, he really is running the risk that if this big opening play fails then his credibility will never recover.And here is exactly what is at stake.The introduction of video assistance as good as it feels in theory definitely has the potential for undermining officials’ authority on the field with players and weakening their resolve in the face of intimidatory pleas that they review each and every contentious outcome via a screen.We can only imagine this facility being put to bad uses by grandmasters of gamesmanship such as Jose Mourinho and Diego Simeone. Players and coaches alike will see video assistance as a time-wasters’ charter for teams protecting a fragile lead. And also as an opportunity to ‘get inside’ officials’ heads and sow their insidious seeds of doubt.The character and calibre of referees will potentially be diminished too in the matter of maintaining their general decisiveness. Will they duck out of tricky decisions knowing that the safety net of a man in a van or in the stands can make that final, definitive call? And will this drip, drip of doubt seep into other aspects of their general performance?We won’t know the answer to this until video evidence is truly live and we have a decent sized sample of real decisions with real consequences for results.And then there’s the issue of white heat game situations themselves. A wrongly permitted goal can be correctly chalked off by video assistance. But the situation is not the same if a good goal has been denied, say by a wrongly blown foul or offside. Then defending players can legitimately say that they had responded to a flag or whistle and would not have hesitated had the play unfolded naturally – as it would have done when a ‘good’ goal is scored. What a mess this could be.And we haven’t even touched yet, on the implications of relying on video evidence as an opportunity for those hell-bent on match fixing. And surely there must be many?Nor have we considered the personal safety of those charged with analysing the live footage in the stadium if they are also adjudicating on game-changing decisions.Jonathan Ford, CEO of the FA of Wales and IFAB’s de-facto host in 2016, appeared to have kept his wits about him when he said that initially at least, the referee is likely to run to the halfway line to review contentious incidents on an iPad, as relayed from a multi-camera system covering every area of the pitch.‘Half-cooked experiment’Surprisingly, one of the most vehement opponents of the proposals as they stand is a man that knows a thing or two about video replays, the veteran BBC and ITV broadcaster Gerald Sinstadt. He has used his column in The Stoke Sentinel to condemn what he calls a ‘half-cooked experiment’.He says: “If a referee awards a penalty which replays prove to be incorrect, a free-kick can be awarded to the defending team. Justice will have been seen to have been done.“But suppose he has waved away the penalty claim and allowed play to continue? How soon does the video assistant “flag up” an error he believes he has seen? Hopefully, in less than the 10 seconds it might take for a goal to be scored at the other end.He says: “Here’s another question. Once the video assistant has caused play to be halted, what happens if the slo-mo replay doesn’t confirm what he thought he saw at full speed at the time? And here’s another question. How confident is anybody that replays will always provide a definitive answer within a few seconds? Have we forgotten the half-time pundits reviewing an incident without being able to agree?”And of course we are all blithely assuming that video assistance will be a panacea but that need not necessarily be true. As the voice of many famous big match commentaries, Gerald Sinstadt says: “Suppose, in the calm of half-time “analysis,” an error is identified that the video assistant did not “flag up”? Where does that leave the system’s credibility?”With so many questions still up in the air it was left to the Welsh FA’s Jonathan Ford to dampen down the flames of potential controversy last year.The IFAB man Jonathan Ford said: “We want to be ready only when we are ready. We wanted to give ourselves the latest date [for a start]. We are not quite ready. It is a lot more complicated when you look at it. The likelihood is we will test off-line first – ‘hermetically sealed’ we call it – to make sure the protocols are right before we switch to live testing.He says: “Above all we don’t want to spoil the fluidity or beauty of the game.”And that is a sentiment that every true football fan will definitely agree with. But for the moment at least, video assistance appears to be generating far more potential questions than answers due to the administrators’ wish to push their plans through quickly