Will VAR Change Football for the Better?

[TEKNOPUG]

And yet the manager of every club that benefits from the VAR decision claims it's correct

As ever, it's only a bad decision if it goes against you.

[Blib]

TEKNOPUG said:

And yet the manager of every club that benefits from the VAR decision claims it's correct

As ever, it's only a bad decision if it goes against you.

By any sensible parameter, VAR has failed in its only purpose, which was to remove controversy from close goalscoring decisions.

A pointless addition that seems designed to remove spontaneity from the game.

A hateful, arbitrary and above all, useless contrivance.

[Driver101]

TEKNOPUG said:

And yet the manager of every club that benefits from the VAR decision claims it's correct

As ever, it's only a bad decision if it goes against you.

It still isn't working for for me. It's still getting decisions wrong at key times and barely a weekend goes past there isn't a controversial decision.

Managers and fans rarely want to admit that a decision benefitted them. There will always be a bias, but it does go too far when fans can't admit their team benefitted from a clearly wrong decision.

The offside decisions have stood out for me again. A few games calls far too tight to judge offside have been judged offside and the goal disallowed. Rashford against Liverpool was offside, but suddenly a margin of error was allowed benefitting the attacking player.

The application and inconsistency of VAR is creating the issues it was supposed to solve.

[TEKNOPUG]

Driver101 said:

TEKNOPUG said:

And yet the manager of every club that benefits from the VAR decision claims it's correct

As ever, it's only a bad decision if it goes against you.

It still isn't working for for me. It's still getting decisions wrong at key times and barely a weekend goes past there isn't a controversial decision.

Managers and fans rarely want to admit that a decision benefitted them. There will always be a bias, but it does go too far when fans can't admit their team benefitted from a clearly wrong decision.

The offside decisions have stood out for me again. A few games calls far too tight to judge offside have been judged offside and the goal disallowed. Rashford against Liverpool was offside, but suddenly a margin of error was allowed benefitting the attacking player.

The application and inconsistency of VAR is creating the issues it was supposed to solve.

The point is that for example, everyone is outraged that the Newcastle goal was disallowed, apart from Viera, who says it's the correct decision. Ditto the West Ham goal. They are all subjective. Lee Mason could have spent 3 hours reviewing the Mendy foul but presumably come to the same conclusion. Technology doesn't help you in these circumstances. The real issue is that every incidence is analysed in detail afterwards and every fan has their own opinion on the correct decision, yet we all want the decisions made (that we agree with) in real time.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

LotusOmega375D said:

If your team is one of the Big 6 you’ll be OK for VAR..

Yet one of the reasons so many people supported the introduction of VAR was because it would stop referees favouring the big 6

The truth is, although var is crap, the big 6 do better in games because they have better footballers playing for them. Man City are going to get more pens than Bournemouth because they spend more time in the oppositions penalty area.

[Dingu]

Maybe the whingers need to get off their backsides and go do a referee course and work their way up. If they can do better of course.

[RichB]

Dingu said:

Maybe the whingers need to get off their backsides and go do a referee course and work their way up. If they can do better of course.

Maybe they need to get some ex-footballers involved instead of people who've never played the game. A PowerPoint slide show will teach you fk all about the nuances of the game.

[Mojooo]

Wasn't the aim of VAR to get decisions right? I'd imagine when looking at it overall, it does get the decision right most of the time with some scope for debate/opinion. It has also corrected some decisions which were wrong but would be hard to spot in real time. So overall I think the results/fairness wins out for VAR

Whether the break up of the game is worth it for the above is a different matter

perhaps if we got rid of VAR would it stop people moaning about refs?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

RichB said:

Dingu said:

Maybe the whingers need to get off their backsides and go do a referee course and work their way up. If they can do better of course.

Maybe they need to get some ex-footballers involved instead of people who've never played the game. A PowerPoint slide show will teach you fk all about the nuances of the game.

That's the same argument as "they need to apply common sense". Trouble is, it's not common, and everyone has a different interpretation. Then you get inconsistency, that people complain about.

The laws of the game are written down. The ref needs to learn them and apply them. No nuances, no "common sense", no "I won't send him off because it's too early in the game". That's when the problems start. Given the rubbish ex footballers talk as pundits discussing refereeing decisions, I'd have little confidence in them being referees. Most of them don't even know the laws of the game.

[RichB]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

RichB said:

Dingu said:

Maybe the whingers need to get off their backsides and go do a referee course and work their way up. If they can do better of course.

Maybe they need to get some ex-footballers involved instead of people who've never played the game. A PowerPoint slide show will teach you fk all about the nuances of the game.

That's the same argument as "they need to apply common sense". Trouble is, it's not common, and everyone has a different interpretation. Then you get inconsistency, that people complain about. The laws of the game are written down. The ref needs to learn them and apply them. No nuances, no "common sense", no "I won't send him off because it's too early in the game". That's when the problems start. Given the rubbish ex footballers talk as pundits discussing refereeing decisions, I'd have little confidence in them being referees. Most of them don't even know the laws of the game.

I consider most ex-footballers talk a lot of sense so let's disagree, I know you prefer to disagree with most posts so that's fine.

[Ntv]

Driver101 said:

TEKNOPUG said:

And yet the manager of every club that benefits from the VAR decision claims it's correct

As ever, it's only a bad decision if it goes against you.

It still isn't working for for me. It's still getting decisions wrong at key times and barely a weekend goes past there isn't a controversial decision.

Managers and fans rarely want to admit that a decision benefitted them. There will always be a bias, but it does go too far when fans can't admit their team benefitted from a clearly wrong decision.

The offside decisions have stood out for me again. A few games calls far too tight to judge offside have been judged offside and the goal disallowed. Rashford against Liverpool was offside, but suddenly a margin of error was allowed benefitting the attacking player.

The application and inconsistency of VAR is creating the issues it was supposed to solve.

Yes, an issue with the use of VAR for offsides is that they (the FA) are not using technology that allows them to know exactly (or, say, to the 1/100th of a second) when the ball was kicked. It appears to be just looking at a screen and guessing when the ball was kicked. In which case the margin for error regarding the relative position of attackers and defenders is huge. A few cm of body further forward could well have been onside when the ball was kicked.

[Ntv]

RichB said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

RichB said:

Dingu said:

Maybe the whingers need to get off their backsides and go do a referee course and work their way up. If they can do better of course.

Maybe they need to get some ex-footballers involved instead of people who've never played the game. A PowerPoint slide show will teach you fk all about the nuances of the game.

That's the same argument as "they need to apply common sense". Trouble is, it's not common, and everyone has a different interpretation. Then you get inconsistency, that people complain about. The laws of the game are written down. The ref needs to learn them and apply them. No nuances, no "common sense", no "I won't send him off because it's too early in the game". That's when the problems start. Given the rubbish ex footballers talk as pundits discussing refereeing decisions, I'd have little confidence in them being referees. Most of them don't even know the laws of the game.

I consider most ex-footballers talk a lot of sense so let's disagree, I know you prefer to disagree with most posts so that's fine.

Problem with ex footballers is the bias. Let's see ... Alan Shearer, Jamie Carragher ...

[TEKNOPUG]

Surely the answer is the same for the referees as it is the clubs; clubs sign the best players in the world to play in the Prem, why are we not hiring the best refs in the world to officiate? All VAR is doing is highlighting how poor the officials are; how badly they are trained and supported and how badly the PMO is run. There is nowhere for them to hide from their decisions now, no excuse for making the wrong or inconsistent decision.

[Dingu]

RichB said:

Dingu said:

Maybe the whingers need to get off their backsides and go do a referee course and work their way up. If they can do better of course.

Maybe they need to get some ex-footballers involved instead of people who've never played the game. A PowerPoint slide show will teach you fk all about the nuances of the game.

Some refs are ex footballers.

The inconvenient truth though is that most footballers, especially those who have played at any decent level aren’t going to be interested in being paid little to be abused by players, staff and fans. Frankly, who can blame them.

Perhaps they could be involved in training refs and speaking to them but that doesn’t alter the people who are making the decisions.

If you aren’t willing to do it why would someone who either has no need for the money or can earn equal or more money in other ways in the game.

[Blib]

TEKNOPUG said:

Surely the answer is the same for the referees as it is the clubs; clubs sign the best players in the world to play in the Prem, why are we not hiring the best refs in the world to officiate? All VAR is doing is highlighting how poor the officials are; how badly they are trained and supported and how badly the PMO is run. There is nowhere for them to hide from their decisions now, no excuse for making the wrong or inconsistent decision.

That's all well and good only if VAR was infallible, which it was sold to the fans as being. It's clearly not.

VAR is making mistakes, it just takes nigh on 5 minutes to make them.

[LotusOmega375D]

The chalked-off Mac Allister thunderbolt in the Brighton v Leicester game was an odd one. On-field referee gives the goal. VAR then spends ages looking if a Brighton player was off-side just before the shot came in. Even with slow motion replays it looked like he didn’t touch it and the ball was cleared out of the penalty area by a Leicester defender. You could then claim that the suspect was interfering with play regardless of whether he touched the ball or not. This is the route VAR seemed to go down, but instead of drawing the cross field lines and telling the referee it was off-side and rule out the goal, they asked him to go and check the monitor. Why? He was either off-side or he wasn’t. The on-field referee has no additional tools to make that decision: that’s what VAR is for. The only time I have ever seen a PL referee go to the monitor is to adjudicate on something like a foul in the penalty box, not an off-side decision.

[TEKNOPUG]

Blib said:

TEKNOPUG said:

Surely the answer is the same for the referees as it is the clubs; clubs sign the best players in the world to play in the Prem, why are we not hiring the best refs in the world to officiate? All VAR is doing is highlighting how poor the officials are; how badly they are trained and supported and how badly the PMO is run. There is nowhere for them to hide from their decisions now, no excuse for making the wrong or inconsistent decision.

That's all well and good only if VAR was infallible, which it was sold to the fans as being. It's clearly not.

VAR is making mistakes, it just takes nigh on 5 minutes to make them.

It can't possibly be infallible on anything other than whether the ball crossed the goal line. Everything else is a subjective decision made by a human. All VAR demonstrates is the degree to which decisions are incorrectly made (and have therefore always been historically wrong). Without doubt there are less incorrect decisions made but is it worth all the upheaval in the game? I think I'd rather video replays were banded and everyone saw the incidence once in real-time, to be honest.

[pincher]

Possibly a daft question but is VAR used in other leagues in the same way that it is here? Are the (4 or 6?) criteria for involving VAR the same across all countries/leagues?

Not sure if I am ‘mis-remembering’ but it seemed to me that in the last European Championships, VAR had a much lower profile than it does in the PL and there were far fewer controversial decisions?

Edited by pincher on Monday 5th September 13:18

[Blib]

TEKNOPUG said:

Blib said:

TEKNOPUG said:

Surely the answer is the same for the referees as it is the clubs; clubs sign the best players in the world to play in the Prem, why are we not hiring the best refs in the world to officiate? All VAR is doing is highlighting how poor the officials are; how badly they are trained and supported and how badly the PMO is run. There is nowhere for them to hide from their decisions now, no excuse for making the wrong or inconsistent decision.

That's all well and good only if VAR was infallible, which it was sold to the fans as being. It's clearly not.

VAR is making mistakes, it just takes nigh on 5 minutes to make them.

It can't possibly be infallible on anything other than whether the ball crossed the goal line. Everything else is a subjective decision made by a human. All VAR demonstrates is the degree to which decisions are incorrectly made (and have therefore always been historically wrong). Without doubt there are less incorrect decisions made but is it worth all the upheaval in the game? I think I'd rather video replays were banded and everyone saw the incidence once in real-time, to be honest.

There's my issue, in a nutshell. We merely replace one human with another.

VAR rips away from the game its one defining characteristic, the immediate, overwhelming feeling of celebrating a goal.

Instead, we wait, with bated breath, to hear whether or not some dolt in London decides to allow it.

If I was tasked with destroying the essence of football I would suggest VAR, as used in the Prem.

When it was first introduced during the World Cup, it seemed to work. Sadly, the EPL have managed to muck it up completely.

[LotusOmega375D]

What happened to the claim that VAR would be used for “clear and obvious errors?” This is from the PL’s own website, posted 3 years ago now. It wasn’t worth the virtual paper it was written on.

https://www.premierleague.com/news/1297392