There are rules.
As stated, FIFA prevents from re-interterpretating a referee's decision.
If a referee gave an unfounded red card, the decision cant be reversed.
It gives two kinds of mistakes:
-mistakes made because of a poor judgement. The referee sees the action and takes the wrong decision.
-mistakes made because of a lack of attention. The referee does not pay attention to an action and therefore cannot judge it. For example, an action takes place in the back of the referee who cant see it.
A video committee can only decide over the second kind (since there was no interpretation of the action then it cannot be re-interpretated)
That's why when a ref distributes a card, the video committee cant come back over it. The card is an evidence the referee saw the action.
Now, referees are assessed after each of their matches and they have to hand in a match report where they comment over decisions they took during the match in order to help the assessment of their performance. A decision can be justified in one way or another and the assessor decides not on the ground of a decision he would have taken by himself but whether or not the decision was consistent with football rules. Penalties for example can or cannot be given and referees are not forcefully wrong for deciding against or for a penalty kick. Not every case is clear cut. So the match report helps the referee to explain how he got to whistle this or that.
It matters for the present case as the referee took no decision.
If the match report includes the incident involving Adebayor and Van Percy and confirms the absence of cards, it is over. It is an evidence the referee saw the action and chose not to book Adebayor or Van Percy. It cannot be reinterpretated.
If the match report contains no mention to the incident, there is room to claim that the referee did not see the action therefore everything can happen.
Hugues mentioned that the referee was in good position to see the action to put pressure.
