What did we have before VAR? There was way less issues and discourse about decisions before they brought in this half baked tech.
VAR, Refs and Linesmen | General Discussion
- Thread starter Samid
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The main perk of VAR has been offside decisions. If you are bringing in semi-auto offside (which is far superior anyway), then you are leaving VAR to be exclusively to micro analyze potential red cards and pens. It's just not needed, and it's giving micro analysis on subjective decisions while watching them in slow motion. Should absolutely be scrapped once semi auto offside is introduced.
The bar has to be clear and obvious and not the video ref saying "i might have given it, let's slow down the footage and watch it twenty-five times and pause game for several minutes whilst we decide" cannot possibly meet the threshold. If it turns out after the game had actually when you draw lines his elbow was just offside of the 60/40 opinion by the morning after was that it should have been a penalty - so fecking what?
I'd also want the acronym VAR scrapped in hope it'll stop people referring to "technology" like it's an automated, artifical intelligence computer system and instead just call it what it is - video ref.
I'd also want the acronym VAR scrapped in hope it'll stop people referring to "technology" like it's an automated, artifical intelligence computer system and instead just call it what it is - video ref.
This isn't remotely true though, there are tons of refereeing errors that are talked about to this day.
You refer to the tech as "half baked", when the tech is fine - unfortunately it's the people using it who are a better match for your description and they'll still be around making a right mess of things, but with the only layer of accountability taken away.
Name one offside not given as tight the Garnacho's disallowed goal vs Arsenal that still has people talking about it to this day. You can't. It doesn't exist.
The idea there were fewer controversies and/or fans were more accepting of refereeing mistakes before VAR is utterly ludicrous. There are plenty of other very valid arguments against VAR without resorting to that absolute nonsense.
It isn't though. Before VAR absolutely nobody drew lines on the screen where two players looked roughly in line. VAR has literally invented that controversy.
"Lads I've zoomed in and drawn a virtual line I think runs parallel to the pitch and here's a screenshot that proves the top of his head is overhanging one of the pixels - we was robbed!" was literally never a thing. Not a single forum poster, pub goer, or radio phone in show caller after a game was "outraged" the lineman couldn't see a players eyebrow overhang and didn't put his flag up.
Just as well nobody claimed that. A lot of fans constantly moaned about referees before VAR. A lot of fans constantly moan about referees after VAR. Nothing has changed there. One thing VAR has definitely not done is reduced the numbers of fans who are upset about referee’s decisions.
Some fans accepted that referees were human before VAR. For these fans it’s a little harder to accept human error when the whole experience of watching football has been fundamentally altered by a technology that was sold to us with promises of removing human error from refereeing. Promises that were always going to be impossible to keep.
I don't particularly like VAR but am confident that if it were to go, fans will be begging to have it back as soon as a clear decision that VAR routinely overturns goes against their team.
A challenge system might work as a compromise but there'd have to be restrictions on what can and can't be appealed.
A challenge system might work as a compromise but there'd have to be restrictions on what can and can't be appealed.
Just limit the challenges. Teams will try to use them when they genuinely feel robbed.
Challenges won't work. It'll be used tactically. The odds of an outrageous decision against you every game is low. Teams will use it to break up play, take momentum out of the game and run down the clock.
1-0 up, 89th minute, 3 challenges remaining. It'd be fecking horrendous and destroy the game even more.
We do the stats for the NFL (I know nothing about NFL or care), but the technology in that system was around before AI. The main problem here is that fouls/handballs are subjective.
You could do off sides easily and we could probably do better than the current line drawing - with incorporating ball impact (pass triggers), in the NFL we can go as deep as ball rotations or even shoulder angles on pass received.
Then only allow one challenge during injury time, and issue punishment for those deemed frivolous.
Players (goalkeepers) are getting booked more often for time wasting now, and we’re having longer injury time periods to account for time wasting during the game, so it wouldn’t be fair to say the authorities don’t care about unsportsmanlike tactics to gain an advantage - they do. At the very least, I think a challenge system is worth a try.
it’s literally true though, I watch a lot of hull city, we conceded a while ago to a goal that was clearly offside when you saw replays.
everyone just said “ah it’s easier on a screen than live” and got on with it, it was barely mentioned on my he forums and we moved on, same with fouls etc it’s easy to accept mistakes happen in real time? Didn’t see it wrong angle etc.
It’s completely different to stopping the game for 3 minutes and then drawing lines wrong or being 1mm offside which is easily manipulated depending when you count the ball as leaving the foot.
Human error is acceptable, having 28 camera angles slowed down and still getting it wrong is enraging and spoils the sport
115's Michael Oliver is the ref for Arsenal vs Everton.
It's "literally" true because you have 1 (one) example from "a while ago" of non-outraged fans (that you know of)?
For me the main problem with handball isn't necessarily refs, it's just that they've changed and complicated the rule. It was easier and understandable when handball was a "deliberate" use of the hand. Now that it's not that you get all these ridiculous discussions about arms in a natural position, using your arms for balance/to jump etc etc
Of course it's still subjective, but in general I think it's a lot more simple to judge if you just look for intent
All the overthinking is a direct consequence of VAR. When you were just relying on a referee’s decision in the moment you didn’t need all these additional complications. The ref could just decide whether they believed the handball was intentional or not. Which is an intuitive decision that makes most sense in real time. Do you, an experienced referee, believe the player deliberately played the ball with his hand? That’s been a decision we’ve happily allowed them to make for decades. All the extreme slo mo bollockology goes completely against the spirit of the way handball has always been refereed.
The easiest complication to fix is getting rid of the "clear and obvious" stuff. It just adds further second guessing to a situation that doesn't need it. If it looks like it should have been a mistake on a decision in the box, or a red card, then give it on review, don't worry about guessing if it reaches some mythical barrier of being clear and obvious.
Clear and obvious pens ruins so many games.
Scrapping that and leaving it entirely to the VAR booth would make way more sense.
(If the VAR room is transparent and has to announce why a pen is given - else we just have moved corruption/UAE refs from a field and into a VAR booth)
Disagree. At least from my personal pov the discussions just changed. Instead of having a small discussion after almost every single game, we now have less, but bigger discussions.
And we had more issues, I think. At least in my perception, we have less mistakes overall.
Agree with this. Even though we have less mistakes, there are higher expectations and less of a willingness to accept mistakes, given someone else has reviewed it. It can amplify frustration, which is where some of the issue lies. I do think if we go back to no VAR, this will then become obvious and people will be even more upset when there are blatantly wrong decisions. What VAR has done is more or less eradicate the howlers but it's created a grey area which leads to inconsistency in officiating (that inconsistency existed before too!).
I'll be honest I think the suggestion of a challenge system is a bit stupid. It feels like people are perhaps clutching at straws for ways to make VAR fit football, but as with the current iteration, challenges also wouldn't particularly fit in with the way the game is played. Better to just scrap it and accept I was right all along 
Just make offsides automated, no VAR and if it's a penalty make it easier to overturn the ref's decision. If he's wrong, he's wrong.
Also change the handball rule to only punish the worst cases of rule breaking, it's mental to basically award a goal for something so innocuous.
Also change the handball rule to only punish the worst cases of rule breaking, it's mental to basically award a goal for something so innocuous.
One of the first things I would change with VAR is a question of verbiage. I would not say VAR is there to correct clear mistakes, but rather to add context, different POVs/angles etc.. When you phrase it as a mistake you limit what the VAR will send up for review pretty drastically. That was I am sure part of the idea behind it, but many colleagues do not like to put their other fellow colleagues under fire.
It would be better to apply a sort of legal application based on % certainty (reasonable doubt)when it comes to VAR deciding to ask for an on field review by the ref. Too many times the ref did not really see it wrong from his point of view. He saw the incident but he is just missing something from that incident . Could be obstructed, could have missed a player dragging his feet for example... anything.
The fact is refs cannot see everything and the game has gotten faster and more complex over time so it needs sometimes an extra set of eyes (with technology)on it.
It would be better to apply a sort of legal application based on % certainty (reasonable doubt)when it comes to VAR deciding to ask for an on field review by the ref. Too many times the ref did not really see it wrong from his point of view. He saw the incident but he is just missing something from that incident . Could be obstructed, could have missed a player dragging his feet for example... anything.
The fact is refs cannot see everything and the game has gotten faster and more complex over time so it needs sometimes an extra set of eyes (with technology)on it.
It's mental that only in football do the higher ups basically have to make every look hard.
Very rare in Rugby does the video refs make a mistake, in football, it seems there is an issue every week.
For every var decision we must hear the video referees conversation, the referee must be heard also talking.
Var is not the problem, its the clowns who are running it are. I think it's a good addition but implemented poorly. If anyone thinks Var needs to go, then we will have referees playing by the own rules again.
Very rare in Rugby does the video refs make a mistake, in football, it seems there is an issue every week.
For every var decision we must hear the video referees conversation, the referee must be heard also talking.
Var is not the problem, its the clowns who are running it are. I think it's a good addition but implemented poorly. If anyone thinks Var needs to go, then we will have referees playing by the own rules again.
Oh yes it is, look up Bobby Stokes, anyway you said in your post decisions, not offsides, and you're dead wrong there as well, pretty much every day someone in the forum brings up the Nani sending off
This is true, if you look at sports that have a challenge system it is often used as a tactical thing
I have a season ticket at Portman Road. It has been a remarkable two seasons. 193 league goals. Just sayin.....
But we have come to notice there has been a problem with the refereeing.
In the Championship we get refs from both the EFL and EPL. However there is a decided difference.
While the former make decisions quickly and stand no bother from anybody, the latter are a bit slow and may not give a decision at all until pushed.
I read that as they, being used to VAR, tend to let it take the strain and rely on it to make big calls.
While we had suspected this for some time for us it was confirmed when we lost to Maidstone in the FA Cup. A cracking game but ruined by appalling refereeing by Prem League ref Anthony Taylor who cost us the game. Firstly when he ignored a blatant shirt pull that actually made on our winger who had the ball but was made to fall on his back. (How many wingers in full flight fall backwards). The ref was very close to the action and could not possibly have missed it. The ball went from there and within 10 seconds was in our net.
Secondly when our defender was brought down heavily in the penalty area and the ref booked him for being fouled !
Useless
I have highlighted this one but over the season it has been a common theme. EPL refs are poor and in my opinion it is all because they are used to relying on VAR.
Scrap it.
Get the excitement back
But we have come to notice there has been a problem with the refereeing.
In the Championship we get refs from both the EFL and EPL. However there is a decided difference.
While the former make decisions quickly and stand no bother from anybody, the latter are a bit slow and may not give a decision at all until pushed.
I read that as they, being used to VAR, tend to let it take the strain and rely on it to make big calls.
While we had suspected this for some time for us it was confirmed when we lost to Maidstone in the FA Cup. A cracking game but ruined by appalling refereeing by Prem League ref Anthony Taylor who cost us the game. Firstly when he ignored a blatant shirt pull that actually made on our winger who had the ball but was made to fall on his back. (How many wingers in full flight fall backwards). The ref was very close to the action and could not possibly have missed it. The ball went from there and within 10 seconds was in our net.
Secondly when our defender was brought down heavily in the penalty area and the ref booked him for being fouled !
Useless
I have highlighted this one but over the season it has been a common theme. EPL refs are poor and in my opinion it is all because they are used to relying on VAR.
Scrap it.
Get the excitement back
Replays should only be looked at in real time too. Slowing down everything so you lose the context of speed and momentum is unfair and makes 99% of tough but ultimately allowed tackles look like borderline red cards if the player being challenged doesn't evaporate into thin air during the physiologically inevitable follow through.
The thing is. VAR will always be run by someone. That someone will have the final decision. So all that's happening is the game is being refereed in a studio rather than on the pitch.
Rugby isn't a great comparison though is it.
There's tonnes of delays anyway.
There's no concept of handball, and very few offsides let alone major game changing ones.
And the whole game is run in a gentlemanly respect fashion of officials and spectators are more concerned with a spiffing day out and gentle applause than arguing decisions rabidly online all night.
This is the point people miss. Everyone talks about VAR like it's some NASA-developed artificial intelligence that referees are too stupid to understand and are ruining.
It's a bloke looking at a screen.
"The problem isn't VAR, it's humans" is said as if people don't know that VAR is a human. I'm sure this confidence in this working seems the most strong in those who don't actually know what it is. People genuinely seem to think its technology constrained by humans and if we got humans out the way it'll work better.
How would a human looking at the telly work better without the human looking at the telly? That's why I think there's a reluctance to accept its so flawed, its based on its cheerleaders not really understanding what it is and referring to VAR as if its an operating system. Rename it BLAT (bloke looking at telly) then the number of people demanding the is that we're all too dumb enough to use the 'technological wonder' of 'bloke looking at a telly' correctly, would fall away
Expect some 'odd' decisions if city aren't winning comfortably.
So he is on the Arsenal game and the FA Cup final, I guess someone wants to give City the best chance to win them both.
This is why nobody will ever be happy with VAR. Four man panel votes 3-1 that Amrabat didn’t foul Gordon, several days after the incident (which looked like a definite foul to me). So why on earth do we expect the referee/VAR guy to come up with decisions that keeps everyone happy in a matter of seconds?
What?
You alreet?