General officiating/rules

[Chindie]

This is a league that awarded a penalty to Manchester United when their player stood on the opponent in the opponents box.

A league that denied a goal against Manchester United by spending 5 minutes scrawling through footage looking at every possible reason they could find to scratch the goal off (something they didn't do when the same thing happened to Villa this weekend).

A league that changed the offside rule retroactively after a goal was scored by a player tackling another from offside.

A league that has made the offside rule so complicated that being offside is now an acceptable advantage if the argument can be made that 'the phase changed'.

A league that decided a problem that needed to be solved was players having the tip of their toenail offside, when the technology isn't capable of ruling to that degree and the difference is completely imperceptible to anyone and makes no real difference to the matter anyway, the rule wasn't intended to be used to that degree anyway.

A league that has changed what 'handball' means on a whim multiple times, resulting in farcical penalty decisions where having the ball fired at your elbow from a yard away when your elbow is in a perfectly normal position is a penalty, but in other seasons the ball can be charged down rugby style and nothing given.

And remarkably these decisions seem to always favour a clique of the league that has the most success.

[Demitri_C]

14 minutes ago, Genie said:

What a surprise it went United’s way…

Im shocked. I mean its only a coincidence.

Just like when bruno fouled konsa yet gets a penalty for united

[alex7783]

3 hours ago, sidcow said:

That's nonsense as well though. 

How can you be in the area of the pitch where the ball ends up and not be interfering with play? Defenders still need to take account of you and not move elsewhere where they may make an interception. 

In my opinion you are only not interfering with play if you're in an area of the pitch where the ball travels away from.  Anywhere in the mix and you're involved in the play even if the ball never comes to you.  You're still actively dragging defenders around. 

Appreciate that this is going to sound full 'tin foil hat' esque but... I think this is the whole point of these rules and VAR combined - the vague offside rules create sufficient subjectivity for PGMOL to use VAR Lines, a 'scientific' and 'absolute' approach, to legitimise bias decisions.

Drawing lines on a screen is absolute, the player is either on or off, however the rules then allow VAR to decide where to draw the lines (sleeve, elbow, knee, hair) or decide that even though the player is offside he isn't 'interfering with play' at a time that seems to vary in order to achieve a desired outcome.

Similarly 'clear and obvious error' allows PGMOL to apply different criteria to virtually the same scenario to get different required outcomes depending on the team. 

Fans of Sky 6/7 clubs and PGMOL will obviously then point to decisions where VAR/ref decisions have gone against them however, and someone with far more time (maybe one of the non sky 6 clubs) could look into this, these decisions tend to be ones where neither of the two above can be applied (albeit last night didn't even adhere to this unwritten rule) and/or it occurs at meaningless times in a game ie Man Utd already 2-3 goals ahead and don't get a stonewall penalty. 

[alex7783]

15 minutes ago, Chindie said:

This is a league that awarded a penalty to Manchester United when their player stood on the opponent in the opponents box.

A league that denied a goal against Manchester United by spending 5 minutes scrawling through footage looking at every possible reason they could find to scratch the goal off (something they didn't do when the same thing happened to Villa this weekend).

A league that changed the offside rule retroactively after a goal was scored by a player tackling another from offside.

A league that has made the offside rule so complicated that being offside is now an acceptable advantage if the argument can be made that 'the phase changed'.

A league that decided a problem that needed to be solved was players having the tip of their toenail offside, when the technology isn't capable of ruling to that degree and the difference is completely imperceptible to anyone and makes no real difference to the matter anyway, the rule wasn't intended to be used to that degree anyway.

A league that has changed what 'handball' means on a whim multiple times, resulting in farcical penalty decisions where having the ball fired at your elbow from a yard away when your elbow is in a perfectly normal position is a penalty, but in other seasons the ball can be charged down rugby style and nothing given.

And remarkably these decisions seem to always favour a clique of the league that has the most success.

This, this, this 

One thing I don't understand is why clubs like Villa, though appreciate that I think Brighton did something last year, don't combine forces and put together a legal case, by trawling through all of the above type situations and presenting them to the PL and PGMOL, threatening to sue  for loss of earnings due to negligent/corrupt PGMOL/VAR decision.

Gut feel is that they know that if the playing field was levelled then the Sky 6/7 would just up sticks and, with the financial backing of PIF (see LIV golf), set up the EU Super league with 25% of games played in the Middle East and the PL would be no more...

Edited August 15, 2023 by alex7783

[tonyh29]

PGMOL have admitted they got it wrong last night 

well that's ok then  , i'm sure the apology more than makes up for the point they've potentially been denied 

[Genie]

6 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

PGMOL have admitted they got it wrong last night 

well that's ok then  , i'm sure the apology more than makes up for the point they've potentially been denied 

and the yellow card the manager got for being right.

[Davkaus]

Just now, Genie said:

and the yellow card the manager got for being right.

You've got to laugh at the ref walking past the screen, seeing no reason to take a peek at it, just to book someone that's angry at their mistake. The absolute **** hubris of this lot.

[Mantis]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

Handball is worse than offside now. Nobody has a clue what is and what is not a penalty.

Sometimes I wonder if that's the whole point - means they can arbitrarily decide which penalties to give and which not to give at will. Makes it much easier to fix games.

[The_Steve]

They dropped the officials responsible for the next game. Wow, big bloody deal. It fixes nothing. 

[Stevo985]

3 minutes ago, The_Steve said:

They dropped the officials responsible for the next game. Wow, big bloody deal. It fixes nothing. 

To be fair I feel bad for the ref. Ok he missed the pen, but he wasn't told to review it.

The VAR has absolutely dropped him in it. If VAR functions correctly then refs should be able to not give something they're not sure of in the knowledge that VAR will correct them.

[KentVillan]

The weird thing is Man Utd specifically - not the Sky 6 in general - seem to benefit from an enormous number of obviously incorrect decisions.

Why is that? Do we have a generation of referees who grew up when Man Utd were dominant, and there’s more of an aura around the club and the stadium?

Is it that referees prefer to err on the side of not pissing off Man Utd fans?

Or is it (seems unlikely to me tbh, but you never know) outright corruption?

[Davkaus]

18 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

To be fair I feel bad for the ref. Ok he missed the pen, but he wasn't told to review it.

The VAR has absolutely dropped him in it. If VAR functions correctly then refs should be able to not give something they're not sure of in the knowledge that VAR will correct them.

Indeed. There's no point implementing a safety net and punishing the person for whom the safety net failed. If he'd reviewed it and stuck with his decision, absolutely.

They're just so horrendously out of touch and seem to be kneejerking attempting to placate people with no real reflection on what went wrong.

[Zatman]

11 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The weird thing is Man Utd specifically - not the Sky 6 in general - seem to benefit from an enormous number of obviously incorrect decisions.

Why is that? Do we have a generation of referees who grew up when Man Utd were dominant, and there’s more of an aura around the club and the stadium?

Is it that referees prefer to err on the side of not pissing off Man Utd fans?

Or is it (seems unlikely to me tbh, but you never know) outright corruption?

I wouldnt be surprised if the latter and that in 10/15 years a Juventus type scandal emerges in English football

[Stevo985]

11 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The weird thing is Man Utd specifically - not the Sky 6 in general - seem to benefit from an enormous number of obviously incorrect decisions.

Why is that? Do we have a generation of referees who grew up when Man Utd were dominant, and there’s more of an aura around the club and the stadium?

Is it that referees prefer to err on the side of not pissing off Man Utd fans?

Or is it (seems unlikely to me tbh, but you never know) outright corruption?

It's just bias. big club bias is a thing and Man Utd have always got the most of it. There was some stat a while ago that they'd gone something like 10 years without a penalty awarded agaisnt them in the league at old trafford. That's not coincidence.

I thought that VAR would remove these things, but it's just making it more blatant.

[Demitri_C]

Didnt rafa once do a rant about all the decisions that go united way with examples and he got absolutely crucified for it?

[markc]

On top of FFP and VAR we now have the new extra time rules.

When VAR and FFP were first introduced, they sounded great.

VAR would stop all the dodgy decisions the bigger teams got and would correct it. In reality, more often than not, it’s used to find a reason to give the advantage to the big team. 

FFP would stop the Man City’s, Chelsea's etc. spending whatever they want. Whereas it's just a way of preventing the smaller clubs spending, making it difficult to close the gap on them.

IMHO the new extra time rules will surely be used to manipulate games in similar fashions.

12 minutes extra time when leading against a ‘top’ team or 4 minutes if you’re a goal down. Coming to a ground near you soon.

[delboy54]

28 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

To be fair I feel bad for the ref. Ok he missed the pen, but he wasn't told to review it.

The VAR has absolutely dropped him in it. If VAR functions correctly then refs should be able to not give something they're not sure of in the knowledge that VAR will correct them.

I think the ref should be the one who decides to look at the monitor, he should not be "told" to look by the corrupt VAR's people....its another excuse for them to manipulate the game.

VAR should be a tool for the on field ref....

I hate VAR....its ruining football as a spectacle for me.....I may well decide to go and to watch Cambridge Utd or Ipswich next season instead (as long as there is no VAR's)

There needs to be an independent review instead of the refs mates and their cohort supporting each other. The whole thing with VAR quite frankly stinks of manipulation and corruption and can be put in the same league as man c$ty. As has been mentioned its all down to money to favour the "sly teams"

0, 1 or 3 points at the end of the season can mean the difference between staying up and going down.

 

[Dodgyknees]

13 minutes ago, delboy54 said:

I think the ref should be the one who decides to look at the monitor, he should not be "told" to look by the corrupt VAR's people....its another excuse for them to manipulate the game.

VAR should be a tool for the on field ref....

I hate VAR....its ruining football as a spectacle for me.....I may well decide to go and to watch Cambridge Utd or Ipswich next season instead (as long as there is no VAR's)

There needs to be an independent review instead of the refs mates and their cohort supporting each other. The whole thing with VAR quite frankly stinks of manipulation and corruption and can be put in the same league as man c$ty. As has been mentioned its all down to money to favour the "sly teams"

0, 1 or 3 points at the end of the season can mean the difference between staying up and going down.

 

Captains should have 2 reviews per game. 

[Davkaus]

3 minutes ago, Dodgyknees said:

Captains should have 2 reviews per game. 

Or there should just be a representative from each club in the VAR room, that could be fun

[Chindie]

Never, ever liked the challenge system. It's just adding a further problem and not resolving the issue, which is shit (if we're kind, bent if we're not) officiating.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Chindie