[Football] "It's not VAR, it's the people running it"

[BadFish]

5 live was interesting earlier. Someone on their said that we are the only league that doesn't have specifically trained VAR operators. We are using referees who are used to being on the pitch.

Surely there is some way of visiting other leagues and seeing what works for them? How can we be such a mess when it comes to this technology?

Its is ridiculous.

 

[Dick Swiveller]

Btw the VAR bod was Chris Kavanah, he who gave Man Utd a penalty after he’d blown the final whistle.

It doesn’t surprise me he was inept today.

Which was fully within the rules. Kavanagh is a poor ref but that is a very strange example.

 

[BadFish]

I thought the Mac Allister banger was going to be one of those where it looked inexplicable to rule out in real time but then made sense after watching it back.

Yeah, no, it's just a ****ing shite decision by a bunch of incompetent ****s.

I haven't seen it that many times but wasn't someone offside the ball in for the messed up overhead kick? I thought it made sense that it was given as offside. What am I missing?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

But they've been continually trying to tweak or improve it since it's inception and it's still dragging the game down to new lows. We've got the officials we've got, so any solution along the lines of "we keep it, but use it better" are obviously doomed to failure.

Only in as much as any tweak to any aspect of refereeing is doomed to failure.

I have suggested on several times since the introduction of VAR that some referees are deliberately sabotaging it, others are 'unconscious bias' sabotaging it and others simply cannot understand technology.

The mentality of the average referee includes a streak of vindictiveness, a dab of arrogance and a delusion of Churchillian leadership. None of this is compatible with making a fair and just decision.

Consider, when is a decision not a decision? Answer - when it is a second or third offense, then the referee may use the process of totting up to trigger a card. Or not.

Bad decisions are a combination of badly written rules (discussed passim), an ambiguous rubric for their implementation, and a bunch of capricious referees who want, above all things, to be the gametime decision makers. They do not want to relinquish their power and control to a camera, a camera viewer person, and a simple rubric.

How many times have people suggested things like a 30 second rule (if VAR cannot make a definitive decision in 30 sec then the ref should decide)? Why can't we have that? Well - implicit is the idea that it is VAR that decides, not the ref. The refs will not ever allow that. And so all attempts to make VAR work are being stymied.

I see this as akin to Brexit. You can decide that the ref on the pitch is always the one with the final decision and then try to create a VAR rubric around that. But you can't! Either the ref or VAR decides. It can't be both. Likewise, you can decide to leave the EU and insist on no hard border between Eire and Ulster and no hard boarder between Ulster and mainland UK. But you can't!

Until the refs accept that the VAR decision is final we won't be able to move on this. After that, a 30 second rule and some other changes (like Wenger's 'clear blue daylight' for offside) and jobza goodun. And no, the lino MUST NOT FLAG unless it is absolutely obvious it is offside. And NO, there is no need to trawl the VAR all over the pitch sniffing for shoves and offsides during the 30 second build up to a goal. There is no need for that, and tiny errors such as the offside before Ally Mac's wonder strike would be missed. Good. That offside did not interfere with the goal and everyone can see that.

It could be so, so simple, but the refs are undermining any attempts to fix this.

 

[mikeyjh]

Rugby matches are taking longer, not because of the TMO, but because they stop the clock every time there is an injury or a penalty awarded, or the ref wants to reset the scrum, so that you actually get 80 minutes of play. This isn't the case in football.
The recent suggestion of having 35 minutes each way but stopping the clock in football would probably get us back to a 4:45 finish for a 3pm kick off in most cases.

Clock doesn't get stopped when there's a penalty or a scrum reset, it sometimes does for injuries etc but then rugby doesn't have injury time (sensible). I love my rugby but I wouldn't hold up the TMO as an M.O to follow. As mentioned previously, it's so tedious when you're actually at the game. Clock stopping in football is a TV dream! It would be a stoppagefest, drinks breaks would become a thing. It would go on forever.

 

[Bozza]

5 live was interesting earlier. Someone on their said that we are the only league that doesn't have specifically trained VAR operators. We are using referees who are used to being on the pitch.

Surely there is some way of visiting other leagues and seeing what works for them? How can we be such a mess when it comes to this technology?

Its is ridiculous.

What qualifications and experience in officiating the game do these "specifically trained VAR operators" have?

We have a pool of full-time professional referees who are entrusted with officiating the highest level of the game in the country. Based on that alone, I'm not sure why they should be considered the incorrect people to sit behind the VAR screens.

The problem seems to be what is deemed a "clear and obvious error" worthy of subsequent review. But even when that is interpreted incorrectly, and the on-field referee is sent to the monitor, he can still say "thanks, but I'm sticking with my original decision" exactly as Michael Oliver did at Forest on Saturday.

 

[cirC]

VAR was awful when it first came in, and various issues were immediately addressed eg the introduction of clear and obvious error . It seemed to improve but this season it’s gone back to being awful, and not just our game today. What has changed?

A clear and obvious error!! Millimetres in an offside decision. All players should be given tape measures just to make sure that they are on side. Ffs in the jostle of a free kick and in Mwepu his mistake of being a few mills offside is not an intention to gain an advantage. Ally Mac was booked for a none foul as Maddison threw himself down to the ground but that is not looked at. Later in the season that may have totted up to a suspension and yet no means of redress. Var is sucking the life out of the game.
A final thought, how many Leicester players appealed for a foul or an offside after the ball hit the back of the net, none, says it all.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Just remember what it was like before ....

You never had the embarrassment of defenders writhing on the ground in a desperate attempt to get VAR to review the goal just scored.

You could properly go up for a goal, give it all with your celebration (making sure you've had a glance at the lino for a few goals)

Big club refereeing corruption still existed, but it was harder for refs to find a way in the moment than it is for VAR to go through a move with a fine tooth comb.

The match and the match going experience was a far less bloated experience. There was 7 mins yesterday in the second half, which should have been more like 10 (5 for the VAR, 2 for the pen and 3 for normal stuff, subs, goal celebrations etc). We're being cheated of football watching time and we pay enough for it.

The fans in the stadium had some sense of why the officials reached the decisions they reached or what they were even deciding on.

Football was loads better before. VAR can't be significantly improved, it will always have these inherent problems. The experiment has failed.

 

[mikeyjh]

Hmmm. Nope. It's the system.

Even if it were run by the greatest officials in football history it would still be an abomination which blights the game. For lots of reasons, the biggest one being it reduces the impact celebration of a goal. One of the great feelings of life, diluted. That primal feeling of unity that you only get at football, degraded.

The thing that immensely frustrates me is that we KNEW this was going to happen and then sleepwalked straight in to it. It warps the game, changes that moment forever. Problem is that many of those championing VAR before it was implemented were driven by the miscarriages of justice that had affected their team (They ignored the fact that they would be the victims just as often with VAR) and any discussion about the impact on the game as a whole was, and is, ignored. It's all about TV innit.

 

[BadFish]

What qualifications and experience in officiating the game do these "specifically trained VAR operators" have?

We have a pool of full-time professional referees who are entrusted with officiating the highest level of the game in the country. Based on that alone, I'm not sure why they should be considered the incorrect people to sit behind the VAR screens.

The problem seems to be what is deemed a "clear and obvious error" worthy of subsequent review. But even when that is interpreted incorrectly, and the on-field referee is sent to the monitor, he can still say "thanks, but I'm sticking with my original decision" exactly as Michael Oliver did at Forest on Saturday.

I am not sure, but it seems odd to me that we are the only league that has chosen this method of using the technology and the one that appears to be having more issues with it.

Maybe a link worth exploring?

 

[Steve in Japan]

When you've got 25,000 or so paying customers booing and/or chanting "**** VAR", I think it's pretty clear the PL has a huge problem.

 

[Swansman]

The only good thing about VAR is that we're seeing substantially less diving in the penalty area. One of the most frustrating aspects of football was seeing someone getting a penalty without zero contact at all.

Other than that it is junk. Don't really think its the refs fault - the instructions about how and when to use this tool is just everything except "clear and obvious".

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

The thing that immensely frustrates me is that we KNEW this was going to happen and then sleepwalked straight in to it. It warps the game, changes that moment forever. Problem is that many of those championing VAR before it was implemented were driven by the miscarriages of justice that had affected their team (They ignored the fact that they would be the victims just as often with VAR) and any discussion about the impact on the game as a whole was, and is, ignored. It's all about TV innit.

It is all about TV, and I sense that the TV companies quite like it. Any criticism of VAR is very muted and any pundits suggesting it's removal are quickly hushed up.

It's less bad as a TV viewer because you get to watch 5 or 6 replays of that incident and generally listen to the discussion.

It's the paying public who are completely left in the dark and that void is filled by the anger we saw yesterday and have seen at grounds all weekend.

But the anger is understandable and actually necessary. The next stage is for the "f*** VAR" songs to spread and crucially to be sung by the teams who benefit from the decision. If it's ringing around stadia each week and being beamed into the middle class subscription paying houses week in week out, the authorities, like with the ESL will have to pull the plug.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

The only good thing about VAR is that we're seeing substantially less diving in the penalty area. One of the most frustrating aspects of football was seeing someone getting a penalty without zero contact at all.

Other than that it is junk. Don't really think its the refs fault - the instructions about how and when to use this tool is just everything except "clear and obvious".

This could also be achieved with strong retrospective sanctions. My opinion is that if a player is shown to have clearly simulated to try to gain a penalty or initiate a red card, that action should cost the club a league point.

Let's see if managers send out their players to dive and cheat then.

 

[BBassic]

Just listening to The Football Daily and Luke Edwards (Telegraph journo) had a good idea - specialist VAR refs or whatever should be paired with an on-field referee so a partnership, an understanding, can be built up.

I quite like it.

But it obviously runs the risk of a shit on-field ref being paired with a shit VAR ref and then you've got X games a season where you know you've got 'The Shit Twins'

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Only in as much as any tweak to any aspect of refereeing is doomed to failure.

I have suggested on several times since the introduction of VAR that some referees are deliberately sabotaging it, others are 'unconscious bias' sabotaging it and others simply cannot understand technology.

The mentality of the average referee includes a streak of vindictiveness, a dab of arrogance and a delusion of Churchillian leadership. None of this is compatible with making a fair and just decision.

Consider, when is a decision not a decision? Answer - when it is a second or third offense, then the referee may use the process of totting up to trigger a card. Or not.

Bad decisions are a combination of badly written rules (discussed passim), an ambiguous rubric for their implementation, and a bunch of capricious referees who want, above all things, to be the gametime decision makers. They do not want to relinquish their power and control to a camera, a camera viewer person, and a simple rubric.

How many times have people suggested things like a 30 second rule (if VAR cannot make a definitive decision in 30 sec then the ref should decide)? Why can't we have that? Well - implicit is the idea that it is VAR that decides, not the ref. The refs will not ever allow that. And so all attempts to make VAR work are being stymied.

I see this as akin to Brexit. You can decide that the ref on the pitch is always the one with the final decision and then try to create a VAR rubric around that. But you can't! Either the ref or VAR decides. It can't be both. Likewise, you can decide to leave the EU and insist on no hard border between Eire and Ulster and no hard boarder between Ulster and mainland UK. But you can't!

Until the refs accept that the VAR decision is final we won't be able to move on this. After that, a 30 second rule and some other changes (like Wenger's 'clear blue daylight' for offside) and jobza goodun. And no, the lino MUST NOT FLAG unless it is absolutely obvious it is offside. And NO, there is no need to trawl the VAR all over the pitch sniffing for shoves and offsides during the 30 second build up to a goal. There is no need for that, and tiny errors such as the offside before Ally Mac's wonder strike would be missed. Good. That offside did not interfere with the goal and everyone can see that.

It could be so, so simple, but the refs are undermining any attempts to fix this.

I don't see that the referees themselves or as a group have any say in the way that VAR is run or have any power to protect their decision making position.

The PL quite rightly knows that for VAR to have any chance of acceptance from the football world, the primacy of the referee as the ultimate arbiter has to be maintained. Or at least the illusion of that primacy. That's why we have this pantomime of the refs going over to the monitor to double check "their" decision.

 

[father_and_son]

Paul Field, who is the president of The Referees' Association, has been chatting about some of the issues in refereeing on BBC Radio 4 this morning. And delivered a strong line on the current state of affairs.

"The root of the problem frankly is if we really look at it the lack of funding in refereeing around this country is a disgrace. If we’ve got a national product – the cash rich Premier League – that has multi-million pound players.

"Why would a fourteen year old go referee on local parks when they have all this hassle? I do wonder how much talent we have lost over the years when it comes to refereeing in this country because of abuse.”


-the problem appears to be the the Referee's Association have no idea who or what to blame! Is it their funding, the player's income or the abuse? Or is it in fact that for years they have refused to take on criticism, having closed ranks to defend the, sometimes indefensible, mistakes made by their members and now paying the price of rewarding past incompetences.

VAR is not wrong, the people using it are wrong far too often, despite VAR.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Has there, or will there be, an official response from the on-pitch and/or VAR referee?

No, and that's part of the problem.

Al concerned are completely unaccountable to anyone.

 

[Swansman]

This could also be achieved with strong retrospective sanctions. My opinion is that if a player is shown to have clearly simulated to try to gain a penalty or initiate a red card, that action should cost the club a league point.

Let's see if managers send out their players to dive and cheat then.

Disagree. Three points for a win, one for a draw, really should avoid removing points for diving or giving points for making a few nice dribbles or something... but suspending the player would be a good penalty.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Just listening to The Football Daily and Luke Edwards (Telegraph journo) had a good idea - specialist VAR refs or whatever should be paired with an on-field referee so a partnership, an understanding, can be built up.

I quite like it.

But it obviously runs the risk of a shit on-field ref being paired with a shit VAR ref and then you've got X games a season where you know you've got 'The Shit Twins'

That's what will probably happen at this meeting that's supposed to be happening.

They will have to go through a PR charade of making a change. But it will be deckchairs on the Titanic rearranging exercise. It will make no improvement whatsoever.

Any changes which could have a material effect have been tried and haven't worked.

Removal is the only remaining step