[Football] Clubs to Vote on VAR removal

[Goldstone1976]

Thanks. Hmm - a journal with an IF of 3.5 (cf Nature at 41.5) publishing a paper that doesn’t really advance the existing best case speculation. I’ll remain unconvinced by your previous assertion, but do appreciate the effort.

On VAR - get rid. Obvs.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Football is run by morons. Nothing typifies this better than FIFFA chief Gianni Infantino's ruling out the 'blue' card option for sin-binning a player.

The blue card gives the ref the opportunity to remove the player for 10 minutes without excluding them from the rest of the game. Then the 4th official has up to 10 minutes to review the footage and see if the blue card should be upgraded to a red.

It works like a dream in rugby union, it allows the game to flow and it punishes the offending player's side in real time. There is no huge drama when the red card is awarded as the player is already off the field.

As for VAR, the right thing to do would be to choose a middle path where VAR is kept for 'clear and obvious' errors and time-limited to 30-45 seconds.

I know this is one of my pet peeves on here but the last thing football needs is rugbyfication. They are totally different games. The box / sin bin review was applied awfully before the World Cup. No one knew if Owen Farrell was suspended or not for days.

The blue card thing was idiotic. It's still subjective but allows for even more scrutiny and micro managing from even more paid officials while the player is off, while the manager of the penalised team will be challenging the blue card decision in the first place. Far from improving the flow of the game you'd have seven different officials watching different parts of a game that currently consisted of 9 v 10 players.

 

[um bongo molongo]

I don't want to scrap VAR, I want PGMOL to be completely over hauled, they need retraining.

This is one way of looking at it. Let’s call it the glass half full way.

The glass half empty way is that the ref’s are s**** either way and without VAR we end up in much the same place but without all the delays and fannying around that makes for such a soul destroying experience for those actually at the games.

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

Football is run by morons. Nothing typifies this better than FIFFA chief Gianni Infantino's ruling out the 'blue' card option for sin-binning a player.

The blue card gives the ref the opportunity to remove the player for 10 minutes without excluding them from the rest of the game. Then the 4th official has up to 10 minutes to review the footage and see if the blue card should be upgraded to a red.

It works like a dream in rugby union, it allows the game to flow and it punishes the offending player's side in real time. There is no huge drama when the red card is awarded as the player is already off the field.

As for VAR, the right thing to do would be to choose a middle path where VAR is kept for 'clear and obvious' errors and time-limited to 30-45 seconds.

They have it in the SCFL and it’s a nightmare.

Teams just waste time for 10 minutes until their back at their full compliment.

A lot of referees in that league refuse to use it as well.

 

[rippleman]

They have it in the SCFL and it’s a nightmare.

Teams just waste time for 10 minutes until their back at their full compliment.

A lot of referees in that league refuse to use it as well.

There are penalties for time-wasting. It is down to the referees to penalise players who are time-wasting if they have suffered a blue card.

Does reinforce the problem of inconsistency if some referees are using the blue card and others are "refusing". In my reffing days you had to enforce all the rules whether they were from the FAs Laws of the Game or were local league regulations. For example, when red and yellow cards were introduced for all football, it wasn't optional. If I had refused to use them, that would have been me finished.

IMO the SCFL should be sanctioning every referee who "refuse" to comply with the Blue Card regulations.

 

[Pavilionaire]

I know this is one of my pet peeves on here but the last thing football needs is rugbyfication. They are totally different games. The box / sin bin review was applied awfully before the World Cup. No one knew if Owen Farrell was suspended or not for days.

The blue card thing was idiotic. It's still subjective but allows for even more scrutiny and micro managing from even more paid officials while the player is off, while the manager of the penalised team will be challenging the blue card decision in the first place. Far from improving the flow of the game you'd have seven different officials watching different parts of a game that currently consisted of 9 v 10 players.

This would not be rugbyfication at all. There is no rugby equivalent of a yellow card in football; their yellow card is - in effect - the blue card thrown out by Infantino.

I think it far easier for a ref to give a blue card when a player has gone in with excessive force, and let the 4th official and their team sort out out whilst the game proceeds, rather than stop the game for 3 or 4 minutes while a potentially match-defining decision is taken.

I also think it is a useful tool for combatting timewasting, i.e. refs never send goalkeepers off even though they take the piss. Imagine they get a yellow first time and then a blue for a second offence, it would be superb late on in games especially if their manager had used all 5 subs.

We cannot carry on like last night, with 20 minutes of stoppage time. But similarly, you only have to watch the EFL to see the number of errors the officials make every game to know there is still too much human error being made without VAR. The thing is they have 46 games, so game changing refereeing errors are less impactful than over a 38 game season.

 

[Dibdab]

Last night VAR saved us from facing a Pen, got the oppo sent off, and cost us a Pen. Against a "big" side. On balance its usually ok but the big issue is stopping the game and ruining goal spontaneity. I think they just need to really look to speed decision making up and find ways to reduce when it gets involved.

 

[Screaming J]

I know it wouldn't get rid of all VAR issues but I do wonder whether we should just get rid of offside. Given that it was originally introduced because of goal hanging and is now mostly argy-bargy about whether somebody's knee is nearer the goal than someone else's..

And would it just lead to just long balls? I'm not so sure. Surely all you need to do is keep a defender back to track the goal hanger, job done. Providing your defender is reasonably competent of course. We don't play offside in walking football (which I accept is a bit different, but nevertheless...) and goal hanging is rarely a problem.

 

[Jim in the West]

The crowd are fuming anyway, and yelling abuse at the referee is happening all the time regardless of what is shown on the replay. I think it's a massive cop-out by the PL and PGMOL to allow immediate live pictures of decision making to be broadcast by Sky etc. but for those in the stands to be blind to that. We've all got smart phones, the Wi-Fi at the Amex is superb these days, you can get the pictures within 2 mins anyway, just be more transparent about it all!

One of my biggest bug-bears with VAR is that the people that actually make the effort to go to a game are the least informed. Take Gross's "goal" against Villa a couple of weeks ago. I received text messages from friends watching at home, telling me it was offside, possibly a minute or more before the decision was announced in the ground. The way VAR works at the moment is a scandal, and the Premier League seems to have little or no regard for the paying punter.

 

[oldboyroy]

It won't get binned as it gets more decisions right than wrong. It needs 14 clubs to vote it out and that ain't gonna happen! The top six won't vote for binning it that's a given apparently. Only needs 1 other to abstain and it ends the vote.

 

[Beanstalk]

One of my biggest bug-bears with VAR is that the people that actually make the effort to go to a game are the least informed. Take Gross's "goal" against Villa a couple of weeks ago. I received text messages from friends watching at home, telling me it was offside, possibly a minute or more before the decision was announced in the ground. The way VAR works at the moment is a scandal, and the Premier League seems to have little or no regard for the paying punter.

Completely agree. The Brentford experience was utterly baffling as well.

My original post about how I'd improve VAR was an attempt to explain that one of the most frustrating things is that you could so easily fix a lot of issues in the system overnight. You don't need to add anything to it in particular, just fix the glaringly obvious issues (the bar for intervention is my biggest issue).

Show the replays on a screen and communicate the decision to the crowd. It's so simple and would improve the experience tenfold. Literally, a push notification from the PL app saying "Brighton v Chelsea - VAR check for penalty. On field decision overturned - No penalty, Brighton player correctly won the ball. No foul." - that would be a huge improvement ffs.

 

[jonny.rainbow]

Completely agree. The Brentford experience was utterly baffling as well.

My original post about how I'd improve VAR was an attempt to explain that one of the most frustrating things is that you could so easily fix a lot of issues in the system overnight. You don't need to add anything to it in particular, just fix the glaringly obvious issues (the bar for intervention is my biggest issue).

Show the replays on a screen and communicate the decision to the crowd. It's so simple and would improve the experience tenfold. Literally, a push notification from the PL app saying "Brighton v Chelsea - VAR check for penalty. On field decision overturned - No penalty, Brighton player correctly won the ball. No foul." - that would be a huge improvement ffs.

Can’t do that at Anfield or Old Trafford.

 

[ac gull]

All VAR is done is replace human error on the pitch with human error in the VAR room

You only have to listen to the recording of what they all said to each other re the Liverpool goal that was onside at Spurs and given as offside "that's wrong that Daz"

What annoys me the most is if you bother driving in my case about 200 miles and then 50 quid plus for a ticket there are normally a few VAR check incidents where no one in the stadium has a clue what's going on ...

Whilst if I stayed at home and watch it on TV or even listen on radio ... I know EXACTLY what's going on and what they are looking at and why

Can't see them cancelling VAR as will have invested a lot in it

Reality seems to me it's far better to keep your worldwide TV audience informed and ""£$£" everyone who has paid good money to be there in person

 

[jordanseagull]

Very much this.

I'd be for it if they only check for clear and obvious mistakes. One quick look in the background to see if it's clear a mistake has been made i.e a player is clearly offside, then VAR can over rule. If not, go with the on field decision.

Actions like the James red card last night which the referee has missed can be looked at while play continues.

The problem is they are getting far too forensic with it. You don't need to draw lines and determine that a players toenail is offside.

This just doesn't work. If it's not 'clearly' offside by looking at it, but is 'technically' offside on a forensic level, there would be even more controversy around it than there is now. You'd have fans complaining that a goal was allowed despite it being offside, even though it wasn't 'obviously' offside. It would also rely on an interpretation of what is obvious and what isn't.

I get the principle, but think this would actually make things even worse.

 

[Silverhatch]

It won't get binned as it gets more decisions right than wrong. It needs 14 clubs to vote it out and that ain't gonna happen! The top six won't vote for binning it that's a given apparently. Only needs 1 other to abstain and it ends the vote.

It’s a f***ing awful shambles if you’re in the stadium! And MOST decisions are arrived at using Heath-Robinson lines and super slow-mos that remove real-time context. Utterly flawed and not fit for purpose.

 

[American Seagle]

Most referees across the major leagues seem to be of a lower standard than they used to.

Part of this could be down to every moment being filmed from 15 different angles, whereas 20 years ago it didn't happen, so more is picked up.


We've also got to a point where no one in their right minds wants to be a ref, so you are left with a tiny pool.

You need to fix the issues of numbers before anything else.

FA/PL need to protect the refs more, there needs to be higher punishments for the likes of Klopp ( to be fair RDZ as well) who spend 90 minutes abusing and shouting at them, higher fines, quicker bans and eventually points deductions.

Same applies to players, refs should be camera'ed up, if a player crosses the line a ban follows.

It's really quite simple, none of these half arsed efforts we see every season that fall away after week 3.

To address the pipeline issue maybe pay them more? If you compare the money the players are on with the referees the referees are paid a tiny fraction of the amount.
Pay them well and put in place rigorous fitness and training regimes. It will help a lot.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Where are all the supporters of VAR begging it to stay? I remember polls before it was introduced and I, who was against it from the start, was very much in the minority. About 60 to 70% of NSCers were in favour - they're being very quiet.

I’ve always been in favour of the tech being used. What I’m not in favour of is its current implementation or the people running it. If we can automate it more, and take away the idiots drawing the lines who have no idea what they’re doing, then I’m game.

Saying that, stopping VAR gives the same idiots more power again, so I don’t see how that’s a good thing.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I don't know how many times it needs to be said but: the solution is better referees and officials. Pay them more and invest in training and have some actual accountability for mistakes.
It's EPL level soccer with part time standard officiating. They are not fit for purpose currently. It doesn't matter what tools or what rules or anything you give them, until they are of a higher standard nothing will change.

Is better pay the answer? Other nations don’t seem to have the same issues with implementing VAR….do they pay more?

 

[Blues Guitarist]

You will never be able to make VAR 'better' as there is no 'better' that everyone will agree on.

I disagree. VAR was brought in to avoid clear errors, but in England it now tries to re-referee the game.

In Austria (I have a season ticket at RB Salzburg) VAR is used with a light touch. Most games there are no noticeable VAR delays. The officials don’t hunt for a foul half an hour before a goal trying to disallow it. I don’t recall a single VAR decision at Salzburg that seemed wrong. But it feels like there are regular VAR decisions in the EPL that are just plain wrong.

Nothing wrong with VAR. Plenty wrong with the EPL implementation.

 

[American Seagle]

Is better pay the answer? Other nations don’t seem to have the same issues with implementing VAR….do they pay more?

It would definitely help attract more people, and if there are more people and more competition for jobs that should drive a higher standard. It also feels a bit weird to have people on £100k a year lay down the law for people paid £100k a week. Is that not a bit wrong? If we expect the players to perform to a high standard and they are paid accordingly why not the referee?