VAR is not the problem
The issue is those who are using video assistance and making decisions without any common sense. This is a referee problem.
The incompetence at this level of the game is bad for European Football. The referees always get away with it with no repercussions. The players, the managers & the clubs will pay for their mistakes while these referees just move on to the next match.
Until the referees are held accountable for their decisions this sport is not enjoyable to watch anymore. If they find the job difficult then find someone who is capable of doing the job.
The state of refereeing now is so so bad that I t might not even be wild to speculate that this seems to be a planned execution by the referees association to discredit the use of video assistance, so the game will go back to being played the old way where their decision is the final and they don’t have to refer to a third party.
How difficult can it be to make a decision with the help of VAR ? It has to be such a useful a tool. It makes no sense as to why it’s being implemented so poorly.
I honestly would be in full support of AI to replace these humans who seem completely incapable of using their common sense.
It’s hard to justify talking time to watch this sport when someone’s lack of common sense can completely ruin the competition & fun in football.
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The online fans are more to blame for not understanding the rules half the time. The amount of criticism I’ve seen of good decisions is baffling.
The sport is fine, VAR is literally improving the number of wrong calls. People just need to realise several things are subjective.
Lots more wrong decisions happened before VAR.
“The ball went backwards so he can’t be offside!”
“There’s a gap between the ball and line so it has to be out”
Wait are you an Arsenal fan who’s agreeing it was in play?
Fans AND pundits sometimes.
pundits sometimes
Pundits probably do know the rules more often than not - But come out with something crap, so that everyone talks about it… Everyone watches the extra debate shows as they discuss whether it was the right decision or not.
Negativity sells
What’s the point of watching the post-match analysis / debates if the Pundit constantly says… “Yup Referee was right to make that call… Nothing to see here”
Nope it’s fine, it’s the morons using said technology that are the problem
While I have been saying it’s the refs not VAR, if you listen to the VAR review of the Newcastle vs arsenal goal that PGMOL just released, its a hilarious cacophony of ineptitude, but most of all - three decisions aren’t made because of lack of camera angles. Seriously. So the tech is clearly also a problem (in the PL anyway)
I mean you’re an Arsenal fan so you’re going to think this is the case.
But I would rather have them say we stick with the on-fiels because there’s no evidence to overturn it.
Would you like if refs just started disallowing goals because they feel like it, despite the lack of evidence?
Yeah well what you „would rather” doesn’t make a good decision. So we now have refs who don’t make decisions because of VAR and VAR that doesn’t want to overturn decisions because of “clear and obvious” (ie friends). The whole sequence of events at Newcastle in that one play is enough to disband VAR all and together, that’s how bad it is.
At what point did we come to “it’s subjective not a clear and obvious error” of Gabriel being pushed to simply looking at it on a replay and seeing Gabriel being pushed? Tear it all down.
It’s not fine. There’s plenty of examples of VAR as a system failing.
Saka v Liverpool, no camera angle to see an offside in the middle of the pitch.
Newcastle Arsenal last weekend was a calamity of errors that were all “inconclusive” largely due to a lack of camera angles.
Sheffield Villa - Goal line technology and VAR failed on a goal check to see if the ball went over the line
Martinelli Brighton - offside check given against him, no “conclusive” evidence he was onside, goal disallowed.
That’s just off the top of my head, 4 errors 3 of which are relate to my own team, all of which are failings of the actual VAR system (as well as referees possibly) , so I presume there’s similar for each team.
Some responsibility has to lay at the door of the players and managers for their behaviour during/after games. The pressure that is put on them through surrounding, berating and criticising them is only going to make it worse.
You seem to believe that there is a hidden wealth of world-class referees somewhere such that if we deem that one of our referees isn’t good enough, we can simply replace him with one of these mythical ones.
The laws of football are, and will always inherently be, subjective. The interpretation of these rules will always be subjective. The reason cricket’s version of VAR works (and why it’s such a bad comparison) is because the rules of cricket are objective.
You can’t hide behind the “subjective” rules all the time. The decisions can definitely be made more consistent.
Also, referees could help themselves with the subjective argument by simply making some niche things not subjective. Hit out at another player? Regardless of whether it was a “forearm” (Bruno G) or “petulance” (Romero) you just get sent off. Also, after hearing the VAR comms yesterday it seems like one person takes charge and no conversation happens. For instance the foul on Gabriel was instantly dismissed by 1 person who looked from two very distanced angles and not challenge by the other 2 deciding with him. A quick discussion amongst 3 people (as in Rugby) might lead to more accurate choices.
Here’s an idea, instead of trying to get out referees to understand it why not see if we can get some cricket & rugby referees trained up to give it a go in football.
I mean I literally said in my comment why cricket is a bad comparison, but I’d love to see Rugby style refereeing in football. The only problem is that the change in culture required for it to be effective is a long way away unfortunately
In subjective decisions, like is a foul, yes. But offside, for example, is objective. Cricket deals with this with umpires call. A similar system could be introduced for close offsides, with Lino’s call for close ones, say <> 30cm
I can already picture the outrage when one of the big teams have a goal that was onside given as offside on the field of play and it was a close onside so the referees decision is stuck with. Imagine one players shoulder is a close onside in one incident and in another incident another players foot is a close offside but the first was given offside and the latter onside on-field - you will get calls of corruption - especially if it happens to benefit a Man City or Liverpool.
That’s why I suggest pulling in experts from other sports rather than upskilling football referees.
To be honest I don’t think we do that enough, football has this silly notion of needing all its participants to have been sat at the alter of its greatness all their lives.
You seem to believe that there is a hidden wealth of world-class referees somewhere such that if we deem that one of our referees isn’t good enough, we can simply replace him with one of these mythical ones.
There would be if the sport treated refereeing with the same professionalism we expected from all of our other sportsmen.
If we paid them more and stopped treating them like shit, yeah probably
The pay has nothing to do with it.
The entire system is corrupt and broken because it’s an old boys club.
And on those judgements in cricket that are subjective, the players and fans accept that and move on.
Seriously, part of the problem is people obsessing over the match officials far too much and looking far too hard for any supposed slight on their team or a bigger reason than “it’s a subjective call”. The notions of"corruption" that occur on here every week are, frankly, laughable.
I also watch a sport that has had a video referee for nearly 30 years - rugby league was the first sport in the UK to regularly use video referees in its domestic league and even now, the same debates that surround VAR surround that sport’s use.of video match officials. People who expected VAR to bring a new dawn of flawless, consistent decision making were expecting the impossible.
Yes VAR can improve, but people have to accept it’s limitations…
And on those judgements in cricket that are subjective, it goes back to a “refs call” and the players and fans accept that and move on.
A run, or wicket in cricket is not particularly noteworthy, you don’t want to miss them of course but it’s a much smaller deal than getting a goal incorrect.
a wicket is pretty noteworthy especially if it’s a good batter
I’ve commented before but the accusations of corruption, being paid off by a team or government is absolutely ridiculous. To me they’re massive accusations to level at a person, to entirely call in to question their personal and professional integrity. These are the kind of accusations that if media or a celebrity made without evidence would get them sued for libel. But here people spout them as if it’s a proven fact.
It will always be subjective, and at lease some elements of subjectivity as the football rules are open to interpretation to a certain extent.
But the process can be more transparent, more systematic with more accountability. And with more transparency, we can understand why certain calls are made and evaluate what can be improved instead of having all sorts of conspiracies flying around.
Even with the VAR audio being released, people still claim conspiracy.
Fun fact: rugby’s review system was shit too when it started out.
They got there through years of criticism and introducing transparency.
The same needs to happen here. Streamline the process, mic everyone up properly, have steps that are followed, make sure every ground is at the same, highest standard, make sure we see and hear it.
Even then it’s still only as good as the people.
Rugby also has far less subjective rules than football!
On the rugby point, it’s not as much of an excuse for football. Because when rugby did it, we didn’t have loads of examples in other sports of how you should do this kind of thing. It was pretty new across all sport.
The PL is being hindered massively not just by poor standard of officiating, but by a reluctance and pig headedness about adapting and accepting their mistakes, whilst looking to improve. The PGMOL and refs were against it from the outset.
Almost like they aren’t interested in transparency because they need to hide their incompetence
They are just arrogant Andy madley didn’t even think twice just said “he fell down too quickly,” wtf is that Howard web talks about process bullshit but that Gabriel var Andy madley and his team must have called the referee(artwell) to deal with super subjective decision to make the final call this grey English on tv like “inconclusive” I don’t want to hear var should just be dealing with offsides only due to their incompetencies and poor judgement
The biggest issue is the fans/ media. We create a negative perception of refs based on less than 1% of their decisions, and many of these decisions are still subjective.
You simply can’t have half the fans saying a specific decision was bad but the other half fine with it.
The only way to get consistency with refereeing decisions is to remove any subjectivity. But how do you fully remove opinion on decisions from a sport as dynamic as football?
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Ball hits hand in area - penalty, no matter how unfair or ludicrous it is. Remove any nuance.
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Studs up foul - red. Remove any nuance.
They appear to moving towards these 2 examples, much like they already do in ucl (mostly). Of course there are many other instances that can not be simplified.
Fans - no. Fans love the game and are seeing it slip away. It’s not the fans.
Media - bang on. They are fighting for their jobs and careers, they need to stay relevant, they do so by saying we don’t know anything about football, they know.
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The big issue with VAR compared to pre-VAR is when a referee makes a mistake, it’s annoying but they’re only human. You understand it. However, the whole point of VAR is to reduce how many decisions are gotten wrong by having a second look…
As a Wolves fan, we’ve had plenty of “independent panels” decide after a 3rd look, the ref got it wrong. Which is fine! He’s human! But why didn’t the VAR official tell him that he got it wrong? If the referee refuses to go to the monitor despite being instructed, that’s then his fault, but if he’s not called over? He saw what he saw where he saw it from. VAR can see it more than once, from a range of angles. I will admit that officials are a touchy subject for Wolves fans. Obviously we started the season with the Onana wrestling move. But we’ve had penalties denied, but then the exact same type of foul given as a penalty the following week, this time for the opposition. Which means we are missing out on a couple of points here and there, which can be the difference of a few million when prem reward money comes out.
Can’t wait for AI-powered VAR then we can all stop talking about it and move on.
I think what we’re all realizing is that we don’t know the rules. When they’re explained to us in all of these painful VAR situations, what’s worse is, we don’t like them. Offside, handball, endangering a player - all of these rules need to be overhauled. Not to mention made consistent across competitions.
The English donkey Refs are the problem
the biggest problem for the viewing experience is the fact that the goal is not a goal. well, until VAR goes over the whole buildup and god forbid they find a hand ball somewhere 90 seconds ago or some bullshit like that.
makes me think whether a coaches challange type system like in the NBA would work better.
also, whats the point of the referees on the sidelines if they refuse to call offsides, even the obvious ones.
there will always be mistakes, but the wasted time and referee refusal to call fouls and offsides is a bigger problem than missed calls
The VAR has to have more authority to just make a decision IF it’s something the ref hasn’t seen.
If the ref HAS seen something, they can discuss with the VAR but ref has the ultimate call.
And I think almost all the “controversial” decisions wouldn’t be as big a deal if everyone heard the conversation and understood the logic for the decision.
As it stands it sounds like a complete mess with no one knowing who’s doing what (at least that’s how it seemed when they released the recording of the Liverpool disallowed goal).
Come on, guys, we all know that friends of their friends are gambling. Almost min. wage salary refs having vacations on yachts? Really? Some of them even have criminal records. But nooooo
Th the the theeey are just HuMaNs. THEY ARE ALLOWED TO MAKE MISTAKES! No bimbo they do intentional mistakes to win money gambling. Time to dig in into them and figure out who is out there for their own benefit instead of the league and their job.
I believe the problem with VAR is that it STILL places the ultimate decision on the shoulders of one person and one person, under serious pressure will regularly make mistakes.
I actually think you would be better off having eleven lower league referees all being fed footage in confined booths where they are given ten seconds to make a call on what they are seeing. It takes the pressure off because it comes down to a vote, it speeds the process because they have only a short time to make a call and I guarantee eleven lower league refs will vote out the correct decision far more regularly than one ‘elite’ ref who’s permanently shitting himself.
It’s pretty simple stats and a bit of behavioural science in the end. I’m not sure why they have all this tech and still place all the decision making on one critical point of failure.
If the majority in an eleven man panel can’t make the right call it was probably too close to really matter that much.