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.
You must log in or register to comment.
Nope it’s fine, it’s the morons using said technology that are the problem
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
-
Ball hits hand in area - penalty, no matter how unfair or ludicrous it is. Remove any nuance.
-
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.
-
The state of refereeing now is so so bad that it 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.
The whole point is to eliminate subjective decision-making. The sport is already very corrupt precisely because of subjective bias.
This is all so wildly unhinged. That Newcastle goal was like QAnon for football fans.
It went qanon because the decision was so bad. PGMOL just realised the audio, it’s amazing how bad it is.
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”
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”
Wait are you an Arsenal fan who’s agreeing it was in play?
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
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.
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).
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.
It’s nothing to do with referees or their competencies for the most part, one or two shocking decisions notwithstanding.
The sport’s laws aren’t designed for this level of scrutiny. Handballs, offsides, penalties all operate on a “spirit of the game” interpretation rather than a scientifically measurable interpretation.
We’ve tried to add the latter, make slightly weird law changes to account for them, and now wonder why there is no consistency.
Add in an increasingly conspiracy-minded fanbase that resembles QAnon, a 24 hour media ecosystem that requires controversy to work, and a growth in access to every single game for both sets of groups, and this is now the mess we find ourselves.
People are fallible…