The Video Assistant Referee (VAR)

[a m ole]

How Lerma standing on Silva’s foot isn’t ‘clear and obvious’ is beyond me.

[PompeyVillan]

It is totally unfair if it is not applied consistently and pointless if the VAR referee's unwilling to overrule a bad decision. 

It's appalling at the moment, and will only improve when the league figure out that this half way house approach to VAR will never work. Check everything, all the time, or barely intervene. 

[KMitch]

Just watched Match of the Day...  OMG...  What is the point of having VAR if the ref watching the replays isn't allowed to make a decision which goes against the call on the field?  There were at least 3 penalty shouts around the league this weekend which weren't called, but were clearly peno's upon the replay.  

[KenjiOgiwara]

9 hours ago, a m ole said:

How Lerma standing on Silva’s foot isn’t ‘clear and obvious’ is beyond me.

It's mental. Either the VAR referee of that match is incompetent and needs suspending or the referee in charge of the match overruled him and the VAR rules needs tweaking. 

Anyone and I mean ANYONE watching a slowmotion re-play of that foul can see it's a clear penalty.  

What utter shambles. 

[kurtsimonw]

10 hours ago, maqroll said:

In this instance the issue is that the replay showed it was a penalty. 

So it meant the outcome was the same as if VAR didn't exist? So again, what's the issue? 

If it was changing correct to incorrect, I'd understand the complaint. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

VAR is going to ruin English football until they 'get it right'. They should be getting it right from the beginning not experimenting on the fly, absolute joke of an implementation. 

[KenjiOgiwara]

So the people who decided it wasn't a penalty for Silva was either: 

VAR: Kevin Friend 

Assistant VAR: Matthew Wilkes

Referee: Andre Marriner

I'd honestly suspend them all. The FA's version of VAR just lost all credibility in my book. 

 

[Zatman]

City are getting awfully hard done by VAR. Almost like some powerful teams want them to fail

[sne]

56 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

So it meant the outcome was the same as if VAR didn't exist? So again, what's the issue? 

If it was changing correct to incorrect, I'd understand the complaint. 

If it's not correcting blatant wrongs then what's the point?

 

[kurtsimonw]

Just now, sne said:

If it's not correcting blatant wrongs then what's the point?

 

Because there's always a grey area. It has corrected decisions. VAR working correctly on just 1 instance reduces the amount of errors made overall. Surely that is entirely the point?

Tell me, why bother having refs? or assistant referees? Surely their role is to give correct decisions, which they aren't doing given that this was a "blatant wrong". So why bother having them at all?

It's improving the game overall, immeasurably. And it's absolutely fantastic that those complaining it would lead to corruption are being proven wrong on that front as well, given that the most corrupt team in football are the ones seemingly "wronged" by it.

 

[sne]

1 minute ago, kurtsimonw said:

Because there's always a grey area. It has corrected decisions. VAR working correctly on just 1 instance reduces the amount of errors made overall. Surely that is entirely the point?

Tell me, why bother having refs? or assistant referees? Surely their role is to give correct decisions, which they aren't doing given that this was a "blatant wrong". So why bother having them at all?

It's improving the game overall, immeasurably. And it's absolutely fantastic that those complaining it would lead to corruption are being proven wrong on that front as well, given that the most corrupt team in football are the ones seemingly "wronged" by it.

 

Debatable.

That's a nice reductio ad absurdum there about not having any ref's at all. Players makes mistakes too, let's not play the game at all right?

But those 2 pens were not grey area, they were blatantly wrong calls.

Just massive clangers by the refs.

But it seem like they fellow refs didn't want to embarrass their colleges by correcting their wrongs.

One thing they should change straight away is that is should not be currently working refs who makes the calls.

Agree thou that it's nice to see that it's the big teams that are being cheated by VAR.

[kurtsimonw]

2 minutes ago, sne said:

Debatable.

That's a nice reductio ad absurdum there about not having any ref's at all. Players makes mistakes too, let's not play the game at all right?

But those 2 pens were not grey area, they were blatantly wrong calls.

Just massive clangers by the refs.

But it seem like they fellow refs didn't want to embarrass their colleges by correcting their wrongs.

One thing they should change straight away is that is should not be currently working refs who makes the calls.

Agree thou that it's nice to see that it's the big teams that are being cheated by VAR.

The bolded part I definitely agree with. I don't know if they're concerned with corruption if they were to use outside parties? Who knows. I get why they do it, as they want refs who are going to be clued up on the current rule set. 

As for players making mistakes, it's not really the same, is it? They're representing their team, if they make a mistake, they cost their team. A referee isn't representing either team, him making a mistake shouldn't cost a team, but it does.

VAR is worth it 100% alone for the offside calls IMO.

[sne]

7 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

The bolded part I definitely agree with. I don't know if they're concerned with corruption if they were to use outside parties? Who knows. I get why they do it, as they want refs who are going to be clued up on the current rule set. 

As for players making mistakes, it's not really the same, is it? They're representing their team, if they make a mistake, they cost their team. A referee isn't representing either team, him making a mistake shouldn't cost a team, but it does.

VAR is worth it 100% alone for the offside calls IMO.

FIFA way ahead of us apparently  

Quote

FIFA 'could replace linesmen with VAR' as pro-technology president Gianni Infantino introduces new department in bid to increase technology's influence in football

Football could see further sweeping changes after it was revealed that FIFA are exploring the possibility of replacing assistant referees with VAR technology. 

As first reported by The Mirror, football's international governing body have set up a new department to discover whether technology could be used further in football. 

The linesman's role has been identified as a potential area in which technology could come into use. If the findings of the new department are favourable, football could see a three-man on-field officiating party reduced to just one. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7392279/FIFA-replace-linesmen-VAR-new-department-introduced.html

Not the most reliable sources thou...

[kurtsimonw]

I'm assuming all assistant referees are trained as referees? Why not just move them from the touchline to the pitch?

As much as we all love a good whinge about refs, one man officiating a game is a bit mad really. They can't be in 2 or 3 places at once, so just have 2 or 3 of them on the field. Ice hockey, basketball, American football, baseball... these all have multiple people officiating because it makes sense that one pair of eyes can miss something, or be obstructed. 

Just split the pitch up in to 3 and let refs officiate their own zone.

[Chindie]

It seems utterly bizarre to use technology to decide whether an attacker is microscopically offside but then to not use that technology to help the referee make correct decisions for penalties etc.

Either use it, or just don't. The juxtaposition is going to unerringly piss people off.

[a m ole]

As i’ve mentioned before the technology isn’t good enough to split a hair so they need to dial it back for offsides anyway.

1 hour ago, kurtsimonw said:

Because there's always a grey area. It has corrected decisions. VAR working correctly on just 1 instance reduces the amount of errors made overall. Surely that is entirely the point?

You’d have thought so, but as I mentioned earlier I think the refs are being lenient on the pitch knowing they have VAR to fall back on, consciously or subconsciously, which doesn’t align with the ‘on field decision’ priority protocol.

I obviously can’t prove it but I suspect last season both Silva and Kane instances are given penalties, and I also am sure that had the refs had a screen to watch the incidents back on, they’d have changed their minds too.

Edited August 26, 2019 by a m ole

[kurtsimonw]

6 hours ago, a m ole said:

As i’ve mentioned before the technology isn’t good enough to split a hair so they need to dial it back for offsides anyway.

You’d have thought so, but as I mentioned earlier I think the refs are being lenient on the pitch knowing they have VAR to fall back on, consciously or subconsciously, which doesn’t align with the ‘on field decision’ priority protocol.

I obviously can’t prove it but I suspect last season both Silva and Kane instances are given penalties, and I also am sure that had the refs had a screen to watch the incidents back on, they’d have changed their minds too.

That's a fair point. 

It definitely isn't perfect. But I think it absolutely has to stay in the game and will only improve decision making. 

It'd be nice if the VAR ref had to give an explanation for the decision of each reviewed decision. I'd like to know why they didn't think the Silva one wasn't a pen. 

Edited August 26, 2019 by kurtsimonw

[Keyblade]

VAR is sorely needed, but a huge bottleneck right now, at least in England, is inept and/or cowardly officials.

[Chindie]

1 hour ago, kurtsimonw said:

That's a fair point. 

It definitely isn't perfect. But I think it absolutely has to stay in the game and will only improve decision making. 

It'd be nice if the VAR ref had to give an explanation for the decision of each reviewed decision. I'd like to know why they didn't think the Silva one wasn't a pen. 

Because it wasn't a completely concrete, blindingly obvious at the time at full speed penalty that the referee had missed. That's what the clear and obvious requirement is in the Premier League. Something that the referee has missed that is absolutely without question clear is an error. With the benefit of the replay it was clearly a penalty, bit the VAR can't overrule the referee and can only suggest a view or suggest the referee takes a look at it again, but the Premier League is discouraging the use of the pitch side monitor and is telling the VAR to have a very high bar to intervene at all.

Unless it's something black and white. Like offside. Because that makes sense.

The VAR implementation is awful. It's being used in a very poor way that makes it both pedantic and impotent, and it's implementation into matches is awful. The Liverpool thing on Saturday was completely bizarre, the referee misses a possible red card incident which nobody was aware of, leading to about 3 minutes of everyone stood around looking at the ref asking what the **** is going on while Liverpool wait to take a corner. Ridiculous.

It's shit.

[a m ole]

2 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

That's a fair point. 

It definitely isn't perfect. But I think it absolutely has to stay in the game and will only improve decision making. 

It'd be nice if the VAR ref had to give an explanation for the decision of each reviewed decision. I'd like to know why they didn't think the Silva one wasn't a pen. 

Yeah I still want it in some form, just think they’ve really **** up implementation for whatever reason.