[Football] Is football more entertaining with VAR?

[Sarisbury Seagull]

I was pleased, as a means to stop the blatant injustices.

But at games a reality hit home of:
- having to hold back from fully celebrating goals in the moment. With an eternal wait.
- the sheer incompetence of the English bods actually running it, this goes beyond teething problems. Straight forward offsides screwed up.
- refs mates not wanting to embarrass them with the silly clear and obvious ‘standard’. Just call a decision correctly. Cricket and Rugby Union umpires/refs are used to their decisions being overridden in every instance where wrong, it doe not undermine them whatsoever.

Putting aside the fact it takes far too long and takes a lot of instant emotion out of the game, football rule decisions are just too subjective for anyone to make the absolute ‘correct’ decision after watching a video anyway. It should just be left down to the officials to make a human call at the game. The absolute vast majority of calls they made pre VAR were correct and we have more debate about incorrect decisions and reasons for decisions these days than ever before.

Take Mac Allister’s challenge today as an example, I’ve spoken to two neutral fans, one adamant it was a red, the other that it was just a booking.

And as for offside?! We managed for over 100 hundred years just using the naked eye, everyone instinctively knew what was on or off just looking along the line, regardless of where the players boot or armpit were. The officials would make some mistakes but most were right. We’ve had two goals ruled out this season, today’s and Mac Allister’s incredible effort against Leicester, that should never have been ruled out and without VAR, they wouldn’t have been. It shouldn’t be as scientific as they’re making offside, it’s a ludicrous spectacle.

I absolutely hate it and its to the massive detriment of ‘the beautiful game’. Keep it for mistaken identity and off the ball incidents when the ref wouldn’t have been able to see it and where players can easily be punished retrospectively when the game stops but apart from that, it needs to be binned.

 

[Eeyore]

The question is badly worded as the answer is obvious that virtually no-one would think VAR has made football more entertaining.

The question should be as to whether it has improved the accuracy of decision making. It clearly has, but days like today have constantly caused controversy. It's less about the idea and more about its operation.

 

[Nobby]

NO

It is honestly why I stopped going to live games

It’s a complete disgrace of a system operated by imbeciles
Sucks the life out of celebrating any goal

Simples.

 

[Nobby]

Putting aside the fact it takes far too long and takes a lot of instant emotion out of the game, football rule decisions are just too subjective for anyone to make the absolute ‘correct’ decision after watching a video anyway. It should just be left down to the officials to make a human call at the game. The absolute vast majority of calls they made pre VAR were correct and we have more debate about incorrect decisions and reasons for decisions these days than ever before.

Take Mac Allister’s challenge today as an example, I’ve spoken to two neutral fans, one adamant it was a red, the other that it was just a booking.

And as for offside?! We managed for over 100 hundred years just using the naked eye, everyone instinctively knew what was on or off just looking along the line, regardless of where the players boot or armpit were. The officials would make some mistakes but most were right. We’ve had two goals ruled out this season, today’s and Mac Allister’s incredible effort against Leicester, that should never have been ruled out and without VAR, they wouldn’t have been. It shouldn’t be as scientific as they’re making offside, it’s a ludicrous spectacle.

I absolutely hate it and its to the massive detriment of ‘the beautiful game’. Keep it for mistaken identity and off the ball incidents when the ref wouldn’t have been able to see it and where players can easily be punished retrospectively when the game stops but apart from that, it needs to be binned.

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[St Leonards Seagull]

It should be scrapped, it’s a joke. It takes far to long and still comes to the wrong decision.

 

[Guinness Boy]

It's much LESS entertaining. Get rid.

 

[DJ NOBO]

At the start I used to think the pros did/would outweighed the cons. Gradually felt the cons were bigger and bigger. Now definitely think it's both pointless and takes far more than it gives.

VAR is not pointless. The point of it is obvious - to make key refereeing decisions more accurate.
And if they managed that, the game would be massively improved.
VAR does need to be handled better [terrible error in the Arsenal game] Although sometimes that’s not easy.
If they took a ’clear and obvious error’ approach, that wouldn’t work. It has to be black or white.
But then you are dealing with the finest of margins, developing technology And limited time.
On the whole, I’d keep VAR but seek to improve it.
After all, let’s not pretend the old days of blatant ref/lino howlers were great either.

 

[Seasider78]

VAR is not pointless. The point of it is obvious - to make key refereeing decisions more accurate.
And if they managed that, the game would be massively improved.
VAR does need to be handled better [terrible error in the Arsenal game] Although sometimes that’s not easy.
If they took a ’clear and obvious error’ approach, that wouldn’t work. It has to be black or white.
But then you are dealing with the finest of margins, developing technology And limited time.
On the whole, I’d keep VAR but seek to improve it.
After all, let’s not pretend the old days of blatant ref/lino howlers were great either.

The old days were not perfect but you had possibly 2 maybe 3 decisions a season that would have you spitting as a fan. Now the fan experience is impacted every game with this nonsense and it is ruining the game. We have let the refs take centre stage when it should be about the players and fans.

Now we will see the laws further bent to try and accommodate it rather than admitting it’s implementation has been an utter failure and shit show and ripping it out

 

[Paxton Dazo]

I think the poll results say it all.

The 2 votes for ‘yes’ are either by:

A) wind-ups
B) folk who have never been to a football match in their lives
C) David Elleray and his wife

 

[DJ NOBO]

The old days were not perfect but you had possibly 2 maybe 3 decisions a season that would have you spitting as a fan. Now the fan experience is impacted every game with this nonsense and it is ruining the game. We have let the refs take centre stage when it should be about the players and fans.

Now we will see the laws further bent to try and accommodate it rather than admitting it’s implementation has been an utter failure and shit show and ripping it out

It hasn’t been an utter failure . Any number of onfield ref errors have been corrected by VAR. For some clubs that could be the difference between relegation or not.
Presumably the idea of VAR is that players and fans DO take centre stage, in that officiating errors are cut out leaving us to talk about the football. I’m not saying they’ve managed that yet.

 

[Seasider78]

It hasn’t been an utter failure . Any number of onfield ref errors have been corrected by VAR. For some clubs that could be the difference between relegation or not.
Presumably the idea of VAR is that players and fans DO take centre stage, in that officiating errors are cut out leaving us to talk about the football. I’m not saying they’ve managed that yet.

Sorry disagree it has been a failure how many great goals have been chalked off for toes and armpits offside robbing teams of points and fans of enjoyment.

How many major howlers has the technology prevented? Probably a handful but the intrusion and removal of goals and joy is a much higher price to pay for that.

Then you have the match day experience ruined by someone in a portacabin trying desperately to find a way to rob the elation of a goal from players and fans in the stadium.

For me it’s been a huge failure and a disproportionate solution to a problem that in the vast majority of cases evened itself out over a season.

 

[southstandandy]

No - because VAR appears to only be there to do everything it can to rule out a goal.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

NO.....if its a clear and obvious error it should take 10 seconds to make a decision not 2-3 mins with slide rules, triganometry (Spelling?) and stupid blue and red lines.

Worst thing is when they spend 2-3 mins before passing the buck to the referee who then has to trot over to the touchline and watch it back on the telly

 

[GT49er]

Silly question - NO!

 

[Stat Brother]

Keep Hawkeye for goal line decisions but VAR needs to be f***ed off, it's killing the game.

VAR isn't killing the game.
3 days of frame by frame post match analysis by irate and ignorant click bait whore former pros has killed the game.

It ushered in VAR.
VAR is going nowhere until all the noise around the game ends.
That noise pays the bills.

 

[Sea Cider]

Seemingly every football fan thinks VAR is a bad thing and should be abolished immediately. But on a serious point, how do we go about getting our voices heard!? We are the f***ing "customers" for crying out loud...

 

[DJ NOBO]

Sorry disagree it has been a failure how many great goals have been chalked off for toes and armpits offside robbing teams of points and fans of enjoyment.

How many major howlers has the technology prevented? Probably a handful but the intrusion and removal of goals and joy is a much higher price to pay for that.

Then you have the match day experience ruined by someone in a portacabin trying desperately to find a way to rob the elation of a goal from players and fans in the stadium.

For me it’s been a huge failure and a disproportionate solution to a problem that in the vast majority of cases evened itself out over a season.

And for those reasons and others they may give up on it at some point.
This would be a shame As VAR could be great if they applied it better.

 

[Stat Brother]

Seemingly every football fan thinks VAR is a bad thing and should be abolished immediately. But on a serious point, how do we go about getting our voices heard!? We are the f***ing "customers" for crying out loud...

We ignore it.
We don't feed the machine.
We don't take the bait.

'We' demanded VAR by hounding referees and demanding perfection.
The genie ain't going back in the bottle, and even if it did, within 1 (one) week we'd be demanding the introduction of VAR.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

I think they brought it in to improve offside decision making with some fringe benefits. Turns out they make it worse and diminished the reason for watching live sport.

 

[Blue3]

The camera position for VAR at Selhurst was so far behind the passage of play didn’t help and made worst by dreadful decision by the two clowns looking at it.
Having said all that we really should have run out clear winners Ali Mac could would have scored four on another day and Palace only had one shot on goal admittedly from which they scored and that was as a result of an unfortunate mistake.
Ultimately it’s two points lost exclusively as a result of VAR which leaves a bitter taste