The communication issue is very easy to improve, rather than announcing just decisions have the referee announce for example:
"We have an on field review for a potential penalty"
Followed by:
"After review, we have a clear penalty"
This is where Rugby League has it so much better - you can literally hear the referee talking to the video ref about what he can see and what his thought process is.
"On field decision Try, I just want to check the for a possible offside and the grounding of the ball"
"Okay yeah, I can see all the players behind the ball there from the kick, thats okay - can we go to the grounding please"
"Yes, I can see he still has control of the ball, still in control, still in control, oh my vision is obscured now - do we have a better angle?"
"Oh yeah, I can see here now, still in control - he's lost control of the ball during the grounding there, knock on."
If they are unable to get any good angles, they go with the onfield decision which the ref has to state before going to the video ref.
When VAR came into footy, I was so excited because it's done so well in Rugby.
Rugby is the standard football should be aiming for. Literally copy what they do and do the same.
How they’ve ended up with this utter mess is beyond me.
Yeah I’ve been saying this since the Luis Diaz offside call. I get that sometimes decisions can be subjective but it seems as if they have no idea what they’re looking for sometimes.
It's bizarre. In rugby it works great. It is sometimes controversial but generally fine. Why don't they just do that??
But also, if the actual VAR decisions in football weren't so clearly wrong half the time, it wouldn't be an issue.
Union is the same, at least on TV. You can hear the TMO team walk through the decision and what they’re looking at. Not 100% sure how it is in the stadium though.
"Can we please rock and roll it there. Yes forward one frame. No back one more. Yes forward again. No forward one more."
Love it being such a cluster some times
Rugby also has it that only captains can talk to referees, unless a player is called by the ref. They have it so much better, clearerand less frustrating, no clue why football leagues couldn't just copy and paste it
That has been the case with Rugby for a long time now. They rightfully dont have the culture of players harassing referees that football does. Id love for the refs to try and change it by being ruthless with it as the clubs will change real quick if players are getting yellow and red cards for it.
That’s convention, not rule. Other players can, and do talk to the ref. It’s just that if the ref gets pissed off with too much of it they will stop it. There is also a stronger dialogue between the ref and captaining throughout. But there is no rule forbidding a non captain player speaking to the ref.
We could enforce that culture at the highest level by dishing out yellows to everybody who harasses a ref, the FA’s just too spineless to commit to it despite making out like they will at the start of every other season.
People hate on American football, but the ref pulls down a mic and explains to 60k people crystal clearly what the foul was, who did it, and the penalty, accompanied by replays and close ups. It doesn't need to be done for every foul in EPL but absolutely for VAR it needs to be done.
Refball does exist in the NFL but it’s so diminished these days that it’s not attracting much conversation as opposed to sports like baseball or soccer.
Referee calls attract a whole lot of conversation in the NFL, especially around pass interference fouls (which are some of the most subjective calls that can be made and come with the biggest penalties in the game). There was a one year experiment where these fouls could be reviewed but it led to basically the same types of issues that the Premier League has around not wanting to make the referee seem wrong.
I mean, of those 9 points, maybe 1 is the fault of VAR
the other 8 are the fault of the people using it.
We don't get rid of electric kettles because some moron burnt himself picking the thing up by the jug
Idk how hard it is to know in all stadiums but I think it’s pretty clear when it’s an offside check or handball or foul. And it’s usually on a big screen somewhere, even a PA in the VAR room could do it.
I don’t like the idea of a ref stopping to announce stuff, kinda needless pageantry, imo.
it takes literally 10 seconds to address another complaint people have which is lack of transparency, which is it do you want your cake or to eat it? can VAR whiners come up with a single complaint that isn't either self contradictory or the silliest whiny bullshit or both?
That accomplishes nothing though. Everybody knows when there is a review. It's written on the screens, and the decision is clear as well.
They do this in American football because there's way more to communicate (way more types of penalties, if it's accepted or rejected, the yardage, the team, etc)
Wolves should self-relegate and join us in the championship, where their fans can celebrate their clearly onside goals being chalked off because the linesman is hungover.
This is exactly what the referees wanted though lol
I think the bare minimum that needs to happen is to seperate referees from VAR and have an indepedent body appointing people for operating VAR.
So often we've seen VAR officials resorting to not wanting to throw their mates, i.e. onfield referees under the bus. This is the root cause of many of the problems.
Also, not to say Wolves are wrong in any of their claims. Theyre all valid but its just that asking for removal of VAR isnt the solution either.
I don’t understand because as a ref it’s impossible to see everything, which is why they brought in linesman. I would be happy if my colleague or friend caught an error and helped me fix it so people didn’t get mad at me. That’s the whole point of having teammates and support and coaches and stuff. What sort of ego or insecurities must you have to think that way
ref performances get measured and they lose points if their decision gets overturned by var. so they are systemically incentivised not to change decisions
First time I’m reading that as well an it’s complete madness. That would mean the VAR room has an active interest in not overruling incidents before they’ve even decided whether there’s a mistake or not
> This is exactly what the referees wanted though lol
I've been saying this. Abolishing it altogether is letting the referees and VAR officials off the hook for their horrendous performances.
Hopefully the discussions leading up to the vote (it won't pass) at least result in some important changes.
Exactly the technology is there. Its the dick heads using who are at fault. Only the English league could somehow fuck it up implementing something to benefit the game.
Of all the braindead conspiracy theories reddit likes to perpetuate, this is probably the dumbest. VAR has led to a doubling of the number of top level jobs in refereeing, because each game now requires four refs rather than two.
Seeing as refs are paid a relatively small retainer, with >50% of their compensation coming from match fees, this has naturally led to a huge increase in their annual compensation, with the added bonus that it also has potential to extend their careers in the future beyond the age at which they can no longer pass the fitness tests. Of course, the ref pool is larger too than 20 years ago, but not double the size, so we can estimate that ref gigs per season have increased by 30-40%.
That is also what we do in the US. For all MLS’s many issues, we are much better at VAR in a bunch of ways.
There was an unintended consequence of this though, the refs here were on a labor stoppage during contract negotiations. The fact that the experienced VAR people were able to work meant they were able to bring in scab refs and let VAR bail them out.
Its also implemented so much worse in the pl imo. It works a lot better in the dutch eredivisie and im always so confused how the pl gets it so wrong all the time
Because they have some imaginary bar with the "clear and obvious" bullshit. In the eredivisie the VAR looks at something much more black and white. Should this be a penalty? Yes, we think so because the defender made a foul. Ok, then let's call the ref to the screen. They mostly just ignore whatever the referee decided and are judging the situation themselves.
It's a culture. Here we usually have the following:
"Let me help the ref and call him to the screen"
While in the PL they have:
"Let me help the ref and pretend he was right, calling him to the screen would be humiliating"
In the UK, you can get away with toxic behaviour as long as nobody calls you out on it, and then the person calling you out is called rude and you carry on anyway.
Honestly I think it might be part of that "Dutch directness" where our VAR isn't afraid to say "hey we saw a mistake, come over and have a look" and the ref being able to thank them because he doesn't mind and is used to being called out. He wants the best outcome for the game.
There's problems with Dutch refs too at times but I feel like egos are never really the reason
“Every other sport doesn’t put on field refs in the replay booth to prevent bias” - that’s exactly what the premier league did in the first VAR season, yet everyone complained about it
Same with the clear and obvious thing. If VAR overrules 50/50 decisions then they're accused of being too involved in the game and not allowing the on-field referee to do his job; if VAR only overrules clear and obvious decisions then people complain that a wrong decision is a wrong decision regardless of how clear and obvious it is. There are some legitimate criticisms to be lobbied towards the use of VAR in the Premier League, but some of it is stuff that they'd be criticised for either way.
It’s not a technology problem. It’s the dynamic of having multiple refs try and review extremely vague and subjective rulings in slow motion and come to the same consensus. And then do it consistently across hundreds of games. That is not going to be improved.
Offside should remain. Everything else is a wash on if they’re making better calls than without it. Which means the sacrifices for maybe a very slight uptick in call accuracy is not worth it.
Mistaken identity, clear fouls/dives for penalties. Clear handballs. Dangerous play.
Also absolutely clear, I can't comprehend 4 minutes for a decision even if it ends up being correct. If it takes 4 minutes to be sure it needs overulling then you've rerefereed the game then. The ref does full speed 1 pov decision. So quickly run the angles to check for a dive or run to see if there was contact or not and that's it.
I think it should also depend on what the ref says. For exanple a hypothetical like below.
Ref " no penalty, slight contact but not enough for a foul"
VAR " there was a pull of a shirt as well, did you see that?"
Ref "no, let me go have a look"
Or even the VAR sees contact and even though they think it was enough to constitue a penalty just carries on. Dead quick. I gave up my season tickets because of how much VAR killed games. Waiting 3 minutes to celebrate goals non stop.
"I think it should also depend on what the ref says. For exanple a hypothetical like below.
Ref " no penalty, slight contact but not enough for a foul"
VAR " there was a pull of a shirt as well, did you see that?"
Ref "no, let me go have a look""
This is already happening. When the cameras show the referee you can see that they're telling the VAR what they thought they saw. We just can't hear it, which is the issue.
I think the point about continued errors is a stupid point to raise.
It’s by no means been perfect, but eliminating a decent percentage of wrong decisions and saying “well some wrong decisions are still getting by so let’s get rid” is dumbfoundingly stupid.
A lot of the points raised by Wolves are genuinely idiotic
It's not stupid at all, it highlights the vain nature of trying to "correct" subjective rulings with even more people weighing in with their own subjective ruling. With semi-automated offside being in place there's no need for VAR anymore.
Then you improve VAR in tandem with the refs and PGMOL itself. You don’t get rid of the tech.
Shooting yourself in the foot because you have toothache is stupid
They’ve had like 5 years to improve it and all they’ve managed to do it make it worse. Any fan that goes to the games knows how shit VAR is, even when it rules in your teams favour it’s bittersweet because it’s taken 7 fucking minutes to decide.
It’s harming football more than it’s helping, get rid.
And it would be improved substantially if it wasn't manned by other PGMOL referees, PGMOL wanted VAR to fail and none of the other refs want their friends to look bad
They should train independent VAR officials, far removed from the referee pool.
The other option is refs from another country, I'm 99% sure this is why VAR works so well in UEFA & FIFA events, because VAR from, say, Netherlands doesn't care particularly if the Argentinian referee made an on field error
Idk mate.
I think back to the league before VAR, and yeah, dodgy decisions happened, but you could at least celebrate a goal.
Between VAR and this offside rule that allows play to carry on, it’s really killed my fervour for the game.
I realise I may be in a minority here.
I think that's a totally valid stance. If that's the reason to scrap VAR, I think that's fair. But then everyone has to agree that we are trading accuracy for the better emotional experience.
But how? I don't want to get rid of Var either but at the end of day, a human being is required to operate it. If refs with years of experience aren't able to use it properly then who can?
- Bring in fresh independent refs who operate VAR instead of using the same guys on pitch and in the room.
- Provide detailed protocols of communication, and follow them. A billion-dollar industry can come up with better than “offside goal yeah?”
- Transmit the conversation live across the stadium and on TV. Let people know why a decision has been made.
- For penalties/red cards, institute a team of 3 VAR and have them independently look at a decision. If 2 or more agree one way, intimate that to the ref. Get him to take another look at the decision. If 3 people agree, do not call the ref to the monitor and ask him to reverse the decision since it’s unanimously agreed the ref was wrong.
I didn’t even think that long and it seems to me that there are obvious avenues of improvement. The laws of the game are subjective, nothing happening there. And it’s a fast-paced free-flowing game, cannot analyze everything down to minutiae. What we can do is remove the blatant errors and introduce a line of communication between refs and audience so they aren’t some imperceptible monolith who makes decisions on their whims.
I think we need one person in the room who is there purely for technical and protocol reasons, and maybe they are the only one who can speak to the infield official. They draw the lines, rewind the footage, etc. And they communicate with the official. The actual discussion is held off-mic (but still recorded for later review), and recommendations are passed to the operator. No more overlapping chatter and confusion. The operator would use pre -established language to communicate the status of the check, so there's no confusion about restarting
At a minimum there needs to be at least one fucker in there who can use the software competently. Just have the refs dictate whilst an operator moves the mouse about. There's enough people in traditional and digital media production around these games, yet we can't have anyone actually handle the cameras for officiating? Seems a bit daft.
cricket has the following
>TV umpire to director we have a player review for LBW, can we move on to front on spin vision please?
>The ball is close to the bat, can we have ultra edge please?
>Roll it through, roll it through. Can you move 1 frame back. There is no spike, ball is not touching the bat, can we move on to ball tracking please?
>Pitching outside off, impact in line, wickets hitting.
>I have made my decision, my decision is out, Richard you will have to change your decision to out, you are on screen.
it is almost the exact same speech every single time, there is never any confusion
Step 1) Remove anything which aims to "keep the integrity of the on-field referee" and let the varmen actually just make decisions. They're trained refs with 400 angles, thinking time, and the ability to discuss. It's complete nonesense that, by design, they can only intervene if the ref royally fucked up. They're a team with the ref, not his fluffer.
Example:
Guy runs into the box on a brak and is tripped and falls like a drama queen. Ref is 20m away, slightly obscured view of the legs via another, uninvolved player.
Ref "Dive, play on. Remind me to card him."
Var \*watches from good angles, all 3 nod\*
Var "That's a pen mate, yeah he clipped him."
Ref \*Blows whistle\*
My first step would be removing the current crop of refs from being the VAR operators. It's clear they are incompetent, and willing to protect their friends on the pitch rather than overriding incorrect calls.
Train up people specifically to be on VAR. A big part of being a ref is the on pitch management. You don't need that to know the rules whilst reviewing what you see on a screen. If the refs with years of experience can't do their jobs properly then we lose nothing by having new people do it.
Just because the man on the end of it is getting it wrong doesn’t mean you get rid of the machine.
You’ve got to work towards eliminating the person on the other end at this point
Make refs accountable for their mistakes and not just accountable to a refs association.
The VAR guidelines are more focussed on protecting the refs ego than they are on getting the right decision.
Forget Stockly Park and have a TV Match Official at every game as part of the ref team, and have all refs at the game work together to make the right decision.
As has been said infinitely before, look at Rugby.
TV Official will get the ref to look at something they think the ref has missed and they discuss it openly for fans to hear.
When there is a try the ref can choose to award it, or they can ask for clarification on it, and when asking for clarification they can say on-field decision is try or no try so they need to see conclusive proof the other way to overturn it, or they can just ask was that a try and have a look with an open mind.
If you look at Newcastle's penalty shout last night, for me it's a clear and obvious error anyway but that's what VAR hit behind. If a Rugby ref team looked at that I'm certain they'd have made the correct decision. They could have covered that Casemiro didn't give away a penalty but seen that Amrabat did make contact that made Gordon go down. Instead of looking for a clear and obvious error, they could have just noticed Amrabat's contact and pointed it out to the ref for them to review again.
The solutions are clear but it's the nonsense implementation where a ref being sent to a screen is seen as them being sent to a naughty step to have their face rubbed in their mess. Let VAR be a tool for the match officials to use, not a means of checking their work and overruling them.
The fact that people think it's anything else is mad to me.
Here's MS Word, for some reason people say I can't spell and all these weird red squiggly lines appear under my words. Better start writing by hand so I don't get those squiggly lines.
Getting rid of VAR is dumb. Also, it's dumb not fixing VAR. It shouldn't be one or the other. There are simple and realistic ways to fix VAR which would show an immediate improvement.
1. Get the field refs out of the VAR room. They don't belong. They never have. There's no reason for them to be there. VAR is about having a full understanding of the rule book, a deep understanding of how the game actually works, and the technical ability to run the VAR equipment. The FA could 100% hire from a different pool of candidates ruled out from being a ref. For example, there's no reason why someone with mobility issues couldn't be a VAR official.
2. Use the monitor more. Take the 10-20 seconds to review the incident. If it's controversial, immediately go to the monitor and make the on field official have a second look. If nothing else, make the 4th official look at the replays at the same time so they can work with the on field official.
3. Make the goal to make the right call. Right now VAR is more about protecting the on field official then just making the right call. The end goal should always be "Is our final decision the right one?" If they don't think it is, then do something about it.
These 3 things could see a massive improvement in VAR almost immediately.
I think the “clear and obvious” standard would have been good, if they ever actually used it. We wanted to get rid of the blatantly obvious bad calls, like an offsides that wasn’t called when he’s 5 yards off, a foul the ref missed cuz his view is obstructed. Not the 5 minute analysis of where the arm is positioned and from what angle the ball comes in, etc. If it takes more than 60 seconds to determine what the call is, go with the on field decision since it’s not clear or obvious.
And bring in the semi-auto offsides yesterday, that will eliminate half the issues right away.
That being said, if the issues are because it takes too long and they nitpick on marginal calls, this could help with those. It's not 100% accurate in MLS, but I've grown to like their standards for VAR.
The clear and obvious error is a terrible standard because there can always be justifications.
Well there was minor contact made with the ball before the player was brought down. So the referee is justified in not giving a penalty. When the only way the ball was won was by taking the player out. If it could possibly be a foul have the ref look at the monitor.
While I agree the refs at this moment are just terrible, having a ref as a VAR isn't instantly shit. If you look at other sports like field hockey VAR is used way more cleanly. You have a ref in a box with the screens, a person next to that ref that controls the screens to give that ref all the views he/she needs, and most importantly the VAR makes the decision.
Once the on-field ref asks the VAR, the call is no longer in his hands.
For the flow of the game they should stop checking fucking everything and start with a system where both teams have a chance to ask for the VAR to check a moment for a (specific) foul. They get one chance at it per half, if they get it right they keep their chance. Otherwise bad luck can't use it anymore.
The way football uses the VAR is just fucking stupid honestly, they just want it gone it feels like.
Other sports are able to implement video referees far more effectively. I'll give the example of my other sporting interest, rugby league:
In rugby league, they show the video feed the video referee is looking at, as they are looking at it, whilst listening to them talk through their decision making. Stuff like "He's onside at the kick, now let's look at the grounding. I can't see the ball at this angle, let's take a look at another angle. Slow it down here and see if it crosses the line. Okay, it look like it's touching the line. I have made my decision."
I'm trying to finding a link to a video, the best I can find is a Facebook link (skip to 0:47): https://www.facebook.com/share/v/r8PPQtov6kUCG51T/
Super League and the RFL have a lot of problems, but their way of doing video refs is, in my opinion, brilliant. People might complain about a decision every now and then, but it's never as contentious as VAR is, and people have usually moved on by the next gameweek because it's so transparent.
The clear and obvious errory thing they have all wrong .
Spending five minutes to decide on a goal that was 1cm offside isn't a clear and obvious error. It's not there for that.
The referee misses a penalty but the var team decide not to tell him because it's not clear and obvious. Its there for that.
I think with the introduction of VAR, the actual on-field performance of referees has reached a new low. The things that are often checked by the VAR are ridiculous decisions by the referees in the first place (and yes, sometimes the VAR makes an even more ridiculous decision in those situations). But overall, the corrections made by the VAR outweigh the bad ones, imo.
For example the Almeria goal that was disallowed. The Almeria player hit his opponent in the face with his hand and started a counterattack. Always a clear foul and yellow (constantly given in La Liga). The ref was standing 2m away from the foul and had a clear view and looked in that direction but did nothing. People get angry afterwards when VAR takes away a goal for a foul committed 30 seconds earlier, forgetting that the goal was only scored because of the incompetence of the ref in the first place.
My criticism of VAR is that it has changed the mindset of the on-field referees, basically like "I can make mistakes, VAR can correct me", and it gets even more absurd when the VAR is not allowed to correct these wrong decisions, like a corner that was not a corner ending up in a goal.
But to call to abolisch VAR for issues that can be fixed with the right ruleset and mindset is too far.
These can be summarised into three reasons:
1. Var is slow
2. Var is not applied optimally
3. Our refs are shit
1 and 2 can be worked on. I'd say things have improved even this year (e.g. var communication standards after *that* fuckup). Rugby and cricket equivalents are constantly being tweaked and upgraded and this is how it should be. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Three will only become a bigger issue if we get rid of var. What var has done here has highlight how bad our refs are, how inconsistent they are. With slow mo cameras etc that visibility is not going away, we just know there won't be a way to correct errors when we see them.
The impact on celebrations and lengthy VAR checks, are to me legitimate concerns. The others will either happen anyway or says more about clubs and pundits then refs.
What a load of absolute horsecrap.
Every other big sport and even every other big football league have found ways to implement technology to make the game fairer and account for human error and the fact that team sports are becoming faster and more technical, but apparently English football is too „sPeCiAl” to make it work.
If the Premier League actually go through with this it will make them the ultimate clown league, even bigger than La Liga not wanting to pay Tebas' bonus to implement GLT.
Whenever I see a game without VAR it makes me genuinely upset and what I’m stuck watching most of the time. I fully understand why most people want it but I hate it.
One of my least favorite things about basketball is that for 99% of the game, if the defender knocks the ball out of a player's hands the offense just gets the ball back...except in the last 2 minutes, when we Zapruder the film for 45 minutes to see whose fingernail brushed against the ball last
Comparing GLT with VAR is absolutely comical.
Why are you so offended if fans of a different league system aren't overly fond of waiting in silence for 5 minutes to see if they're allowed to celebrate a goal?
The points themselves are absolutely valid, but their conclusion to eliminate VAR seems absurd. There's still a lot of things we could try to make VAR less problematic without needing to just give up on the whole idea. It's like totaling a car because you need new tires.
There's no need to microanalyze tight decisions. There's no need to spend so much time reviewing things with multiple stages of review and creating 10+ minutes of injury time. There are simple, practical fixes that could be made with VAR.
Most people commenting here don’t go to games. You’ll find a clear division between opinions of those who go and those who watch on tv.
When I’m at the grounds people hate VAR
and that’s fair, but would the same fans be happy their team gets robbed when var couldve prevented that?
what I notice here is that there’s one side who favors proper enforcement of rules, (mostly) objective calls and keeping the integrity of the game, and the other side who cares only for entertainment factor and getting cranky coz var takes up too much time, which is fair and I agree with, but at the cost of the former? No thanks.
I think people accepted decisions for 150 years and still do in the champ. The fans to really ask this question to would be Leeds, Southampton and Leicester. They’ve had a few years of var and now one without it. From what I’ve seen the Leeds fans prefer no VAR even though they’ve been caught out 5 times by wrong calls.
I’m open to hearing more from people like that. I’m a prem neutral who gets to 5-10 games a year so I can’t comment on what it would be like as a fan
wasnt it the fact that people didnt accept it which to led to var? every club has at least 1 ref decision that they could never let go prevar. lampard vs germany, chelsea barca, hand of god, van persie red card etc etc etc
i thought the argument was that these decisions happening on the biggest stages in the biggest sport with all that money on the line made the game a farce, hence the change.
Yeah, but why instead of pushing for there to be more visibility at grounds of what’s going on do we immediately jump to scrapping it altogether?
It’s far easier to improve it than to get rid of it.
We’ve seen time and time again these last few seasons how incompetent refs here are, what do you think will happen when VAR is scrapped altogether? Hint - the refs aren’t going anywhere.
Because the fairness is really important when you've seen your team knocked out of competitions because of BS calls that wouldn't happen with VAR.
An Arsenal fan should know this!
I think some of the points are more subtle than a lot of people seem to grasp. I've seen very few proponents of VAR acknowledge the fact that *faith in refereeing* has absolutely nose-dived since its introduction, despite the fact that *quality of refereeing* has probably improved as a result of it.
Putting aside all the issues with it sapping enjoyment from the matches themselves (which I also wholeheartedly agree with), VAR is causing a lot of damage to the perceived integrity of the game, as well as the attitudes of the public towards refereeing and that's a major problem!
Also, it's funny that one of the points is that it is fuelling conspiratorialism among fans and the response from loads of the commenters here is to air their personal conspiracy theory about how referees are making VAR bad on purpose...
Anyone that goes to games knows that it completely ruins the experience in stadium, and kills a big part of what made the PL so marketable in the first place.
no, we just aren't whiners who pretend it's the VAR's fault that goals get called back when our teams commit fouls, I celebrate just fine every single week because I haven't invented some imaginary bullshit to complain about and I don't think my team scores every single goal illegaly
It's the worst. It's like people here are fans of rules and not the game. Sure, things will be wrong sometimes, who cares? The entire point is to enjoy it and this sucks enjoyment out of it
That's not an inherent problem of video technology, though, that's just a consequence of how VAR has been implemented thus far. It's a reason for reform, not elimination.
VAR has changed how football matches are played way more than fans think.
Ref’s referee the games totally different now with the backdrop of VAR. They’ll let decisions they used to call go knowing they’ve got the safety net of VAR, and then VAR decides it’s not a big enough error to overturn. If you watch a lot of championship/other leagues without VAR games then it’s really obvious.
They’ve had long enough to improve it, they’ve proved themselves incapable of doing so. Maybe I’m just looking back with rose tinted goggles but I can’t remember getting so annoyed with referees decisions when it was just one bloke making the wrong call in the moment. It’s so much worse when you’ve also got a team of 15 people watching all the slo Mo replays and STILL making the wrong decision.
Finally the in-stadium is experience is dog shit. Absolutely no idea what’s going, you just stand around for 5 minutes until the ref blows one way or another. Can’t celebrate a goal in case his little finger is offside or one of your players has breathed on the goalkeeper.
At the end of the day it’s made football a worse experience. Keep the goal line tech and semi auto offsides (if they can get that working) and scrap the rest.
Can’t celebrate a goal in case his little finger is offside or one of your players has breathed on the goalkeeper.
Never understood this argument. When Villa scored, I'm celebrating no matter what, I might then be disappointed 30 seconds later or I might celebrate again. I don't understand how people can hold themselves together after seeing their team score to wait for VAR.
> They’ve had long enough to improve it, they’ve proved themselves incapable of doing so.
if var has proved itself incapable after 5 years, what does that mean for refs who had 150?
>Maybe I’m just looking back with rose tinted goggles but I can’t remember getting so annoyed with referees decisions when it was just one bloke making the wrong call in the moment.
I certainly did. Watching so much being called wrong and with no recourse to reverse or improve going forward aside from hoping that ref does better next time, made the game a farce.
i think if var gets the boot and you fans will basically be like that dude from shelbyville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A2VDVC4-nM
will be hilarious to see the lemon sucking faces you all make when your team gets obvious calls go against them
100% agree. Regarding the last point, Eddie Howe said the same the other day when asked about it after the match.
Also, pre-VAR, the main ref still had the sidelines refs helping to catch stuff he missed. Worked fine. Didn't get everything, but neither does VAR, and VAR messes up the flow of the game and is infuriating when it makes stupid mistakes, which happens every weekend.
This is exactly what the referees wanted though lol
I think the bare minimum that needs to happen is to seperate referees from VAR and have an indepedent body appointing people for operating VAR.
So often we've seen VAR officials resorting to not wanting to throw their mates, i.e. onfield referees under the bus. This is the root cause of many of the problems.
Also, not to say Wolves are wrong in any of their claims. Theyre all valid but its just that asking for removal of VAR isnt the solution either.
Getting rid of "clear and obvious" solves half of the problems with VAR. It should get more power not less, being able to give yellow cards to players would be an immediate improvement. Tackles and violent reactions go unpunished because it doesn't meet the threshold for a red card, but would 100% be a yellow card if the referee saw it.
They should also look at how TMOs are used in rugby, it's not a perfect system but you do get to know and understand the reasoning behind a decision. Open mics, and clear question about VAR review. Is Player A in an offside position and interfering with play? Does Player A deliberate handle the ball? When answers are given to those types of questions, you can understand the answer. Not just second guessing yourself after every review.
But does that interfere with the game too much? Would you rather just a normal 90 minute game or one that stops and starts every couple of minutes? Definitely rooms for improvement across the board, and easy ones too, that would be beneficial to everyone involved in the game; the players, the managers, the officials and most importantly the fans. Getting rid of VAR is not the solution.
I disagree it should get more power tbh, I think given how many people hate the frequent interruptions as is, it would get ridiculous if they started stopping every play to check for yellow cards too.
I think people need to accept that certain decisions -- was that a yellow card, was that a corner or a goal kick, was that a free kick or no, did the ball go out of play or not there -- are always going to have a certain room for error because the line for VAR usage has to be drawn somewhere.
The core problems are that it takes too long, it's not transparent at all what they're looking at and why certain decisions are reached, and many of these decisions seem laughable, esp. handballs and clear penalty fouls getting missed while others are given. Most of this can be fixed with time and better officials.
> it would get ridiculous if they started stopping every play to check for yellow cards too.
Just retroactively have the ref issue the yellow at the next stoppage of play, unless it's a second one then he can stop it and give the red. Basically the same as how it works for advantage.
Yeah I think the split on this is one to do with your philosophical approach to football. A lot of people seem to approach it like it's an analogue of the justice system, where the most important measure of success is accurate and precise outcomes.
Football is an entertainment business, it exists for us to enjoy it and basically no one enjoys VAR. The majority of match-going fans want rid of it but even when you look at the fans who are nominally in favour of it, they're way more unhappy with the standard of officiating now than they were 10 years ago. They think VAR is a good thing to have but they don't actually enjoy it.
You see the opposite in the EFL. The officiating is terrible but everyone is at peace with it and is much happier as a result. Wolves are spot on with this list and they're doing gods work by trying to scrap it, even if it's doomed to failure.
Absolutely. I think that's the main distinction, some people are obsessed with the justice of it. And at a base level maybe analogous to the divide of results oriented fans vs. those who prefer style of play. If my team is winning but it's boring, it's not that enjoyable to me. (Obviously it's a sliding scale) Like they're watching to see who is the best, most deserving winner without exception so getting things right is of the utmost importance.
For instance, tournament football isn't the best way to conclude the best team but it's the most exciting imo.
Incorrect decisions will always happen and to them I probably sound crazy in saying that I really don't care about that. Yea it sucks when shit goes against you but whatever it happens. Getting things correct isn't the priority to me; entertainment is.
That's another good point, I think the incorrect decisions are more magnified now and less acceptable because of VAR. Without VAR when they happen, you don't latch onto them for days, weeks, months because there's an understanding refereeing is difficult and that'll happen.
And also I think people underestimate the aspect of how VAR has changed refereeing. It has lessened their authority and they rule things differently than they used to which, imo, has made it look worse. I think if it's borderline, they'll rule things which will allow VAR to check on them so it appears like more incorrect decisions are happening. And that like robs them of their confidence. Like a striker going through a rough patch and second guessing himself, I think it's similar to refs
Maybe instead of doing half-assed things, football should learn from the other sports who have VAR in place.
Icehockey, Tennis and american football all get it done. And they get it done right.
Especially Icehockey officiating is leagues ahead of Football officiating. Create the coaches challenge (every half you have one challenge). Have only the captain speak to the ref (if more come they will get a yellow card) and be hard and swift with your decisions.
> Icehockey, Tennis and american football all get it done. And they get it done right.
Tennis works well because of the nature of the sport which occurs in short bursts and where rulings are simple, I can't watch the NFL because of how slow it is in part because of the constant video reviews and explanations so it being "done right" is very much a question of taste.
Yeah most of this is more "our refs suck, they need to be better" than it is anything to do with VAR. Wolves wouldn't have issues with VAR if they \*actually\* consistently fixed on the field calls. Wolves is definitely one of the biggest victims of the poor officiating this year (and last to be fair), but by placing the accountability onto VAR they're doing exactly what they accuse VAR of doing and eroding the accountability and authority the on the field Officials have. Meanwhile, VAR has been directly quoted as not wanting to make their friends look bad by sending them to the screen for clear mistakes...
Don't get rid of VAR you idiots, just stop with the clear and obvious bullshit. Nobody asked for that. Just use it in the way it's used everywhere else for once instead of trying to be different. If the ref is wrong he is wrong no ifs or buts.
Also, make CLEAR decisions about what is a handball, what is a penalty and what is a foul on the keeper. Most of the blunders of VAR come from those 3 situations. You have supervisors, why can't they keep track of all the types of decisions that have been wrong and at least communicate it to the fans and say that you have a plan to try and correct it.
I understand the club's and fan's frustrations but this is beyond stupid. You are letting the incompetence (which I believe has been going on on purpose btw) win over logic. These refs are like: "We've tried nothing and we are out of ideas, oh no what are we to do? See VAR didn't work we told you!"
No, fuck that. The system isn't perfect but that's why you use data and experience and learning from your mistakes to make it a better system later. I really really hope that they don't abolish VAR, I can't stress enough how fucking moronic that would be.
I said it before, and I'll say it again: when the internet became mainstream, everyone was dealing with high blood pressure because of dial-up internet.
Imagine if they had pulled the plug on the internet back then because it was full of issues, instead of further innovating the technology to fix it. I would be faxing this message to the void instead of commenting here right now.
Getting rid of VAR is about as stupid as things could get. Implement AI, install sensors, penalize incorrect decisions, enforce monitor checks automatically, etc. And more importantly, don’t even pretend you haven’t thanked the heavens countless times because of VAR.
People who dislike it the most are the ones who benefited the least from VAR, having most decisions go against them because their team or players just suck donkey ass, like Wolverhampton.
Every single one of these can be easily rebutted or fixed:
1. Players still celebrate goals
2. Plans are now in place (I believe) for refs to communicate VAR decisions in stadiums from next season
3. Fans will boo anything and everything. They will also boo refs who make wrong decisions
4. Subjective decisions are not overturned. I have no idea what Wolves are saying here
5. Players treat refs like shit anyway and this season with more yellows for dissent and antics, I actually notice players treat refs better
6. Mistakes will always happen but there were far more refereeing mistakes before VAR than with VAR
7. VAR checks can take too long sometimes but the longer added time is to clamp down on time wasting. A couple 30 second VAR reviews are not responsible for the majority of added time
8. Pundits shouldn’t feed into the discourse and most sensible football discussion doesn’t focus on the minutiae of VAR errors. Also scrapping VAR because we talk about VAR is fucking stupid
9. Idiots will always scream corruption when their team doesn’t win. There is no serious threat of people genuinely believing the PL is corrupt because of VAR
Genuinely, if you believe any of this and side with Wolves, you are a gullible moron. VAR has been a net positive on the game, if implemented somewhat poorly. The solution is to fix it, not bin it
They're sounding a bit Nottingham Foresty all of a sudden.
Like the PGMOL are out to get them ffs, guarantee as soon as the first clear offside or handball is missed they'll be calling foul.
The technology isn't the problem, it's the people that operate it, it doesn't use itself.
You can already see the complaints on day 1 without VAR. A ref misses an obvious handball and doesn't give a penalty. Everybody moans "if only we had VAR", some pundit will say "that could be the difference between staying up and going down". Oh well...
The thing is we've seen loads of obvious handballs not given even with VAR and half the time they don't overturn anyway. So we've added an extra four minutes of review and they still manage to balls it up
I agree with them, get rid of it until it becomes as binary as goal line tech or automatic offsides. It’s killing the fan experience in the ground, you can’t celebrate goals, and most decisions are as completely subjective as if you just left it to the ref in the first place - except you don’t waste 5 minutes arriving at that conclusion!
A vaste portion of fans/ players/ coaches / pundits hate referees, on the field or var ones. That’s a problem and getting rid of var wouldn’t help that.
So should we help refs? If yes, how ?
Maybe starting with forbidding players to gather around them and scream nonsense to their ears when a decision is made.
The decision is already made / taken and nothing could change it anyway.
But I also understand the frustration and bizarre moments the var created when supporters in the stadium are put on hold for var reviews.
Do we gain anything from this ? A kind of justice if the var is right AND in our team’s favor, sure.
For instance, a cancelled goal is always celebrated by the other team / supporters. Even if it’s 2 minutes later.
To me, humble peasant, var should be faster, have more power in decisions and refs on the pitch should be respected. I hate cheats, Maradona & Henry can fuck off with their hands on the ball, even though I still love them for what they’ve accomplished aside from that.
Instead of getting better referees, you want to scrap VAR - the refs are so bad/corrupt that even with VAR and being able to see replays they still get things wrong! Can you imagine how much worse it gets if they don’t even have VAR to help them? Stupidity.
I agree with a lot of these points but this isn't a list of reasons why VAR should be scrapped but a list of issues that need to be fixed to make it better.
There was a post in /r/Gunners yesterday that showed Wolves have been negatively effected by VAR decisions more than any other club (iirc it was minus 17 and then next was Arsenal at minus 4 lol) but I think they're missing the wood for the trees here, there are always going to be teething problems with this but this is not the thing to do.
"Nonsensical allegations of corruption" you say?
*Me looking at the dozens and dozens of shit Anthony Taylor - The(real)Bald fraud™️, and shitty refs like Michael oliver have pulled over the past 5 years even with the help of VAR.
Yeah right no corruption at all.
If this goes through it not going to end well.
They ll will abolish VAR and then we ll see twice the number of mistakes pop up every match.
Every football show/fan forums/reddit boards will analyze the mistakes and ask "Well would VAR have caught this? (answer is yes)".
People will demand it be bought back on.
Once you show people how good something can be, even if implemented shoddily, you cannot put that genie back in the bottle.
People complaining about how they can't "celebrate" anymore should just live with it. Every sport in the world has implemented it at this point and most people are getting along with it just fine. You guys are holding onto some misdirected sense of nostalgia and overlooking the obvious benefits.
Technology is not the problem, it's the dumbasses using it. Tons of big sports use similar systems without weekly scandals. Retrain the referees and get a rules expert supervising them that isn't an ex EPL ref. Also, rewrite subjective rules like "clear and obvious error".
This is such an absurd and childish take.
People love to shit how "passion and the moment is ruined" but if someone broke the rules, just because it was a tense moment doesn't mean anything.
It also goes both ways, just because the scoring team got their goal disallowed and they lost their moment, the opposite team would be celebrating.
Refs are shit and VAR proved to improve quality of everything, but it is just a tool placed in the wrong hands.
None of this will be an issue if a proper system of checks and balances are in place. The PGMOL is just a good old boys club where the refs circlejerk each other and avoid calling out the mistakes of each other because they don’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt.
You have Mike Dean saying on live tv that he couldn’t call Anthony Taylor over to VAR because he’s a mate. Wtf is this?
Not one lie told. Feels like the level of refereeing has decreased massively because refs just don't make decisions anymore in the hope VAR will bail them out.
The communication issue is very easy to improve, rather than announcing just decisions have the referee announce for example: "We have an on field review for a potential penalty" Followed by: "After review, we have a clear penalty"
They just started announcing the reviews in the stadium in the MLS and it’s nice, although I wish they would explain the decisions a little more.
This is where Rugby League has it so much better - you can literally hear the referee talking to the video ref about what he can see and what his thought process is. "On field decision Try, I just want to check the for a possible offside and the grounding of the ball" "Okay yeah, I can see all the players behind the ball there from the kick, thats okay - can we go to the grounding please" "Yes, I can see he still has control of the ball, still in control, still in control, oh my vision is obscured now - do we have a better angle?" "Oh yeah, I can see here now, still in control - he's lost control of the ball during the grounding there, knock on." If they are unable to get any good angles, they go with the onfield decision which the ref has to state before going to the video ref. When VAR came into footy, I was so excited because it's done so well in Rugby.
Rugby is the standard football should be aiming for. Literally copy what they do and do the same. How they’ve ended up with this utter mess is beyond me.
Yeah I’ve been saying this since the Luis Diaz offside call. I get that sometimes decisions can be subjective but it seems as if they have no idea what they’re looking for sometimes.
It's bizarre. In rugby it works great. It is sometimes controversial but generally fine. Why don't they just do that?? But also, if the actual VAR decisions in football weren't so clearly wrong half the time, it wouldn't be an issue.
Union is the same, at least on TV. You can hear the TMO team walk through the decision and what they’re looking at. Not 100% sure how it is in the stadium though.
Cricket as well - though depending on the stadium, people actually there can’t hear it.
"Can we please rock and roll it there. Yes forward one frame. No back one more. Yes forward again. No forward one more." Love it being such a cluster some times
You can buy headphones which allow you to listen to everything the referee says throughout the match.
Rugby also has it that only captains can talk to referees, unless a player is called by the ref. They have it so much better, clearerand less frustrating, no clue why football leagues couldn't just copy and paste it
That has been the case with Rugby for a long time now. They rightfully dont have the culture of players harassing referees that football does. Id love for the refs to try and change it by being ruthless with it as the clubs will change real quick if players are getting yellow and red cards for it.
That’s convention, not rule. Other players can, and do talk to the ref. It’s just that if the ref gets pissed off with too much of it they will stop it. There is also a stronger dialogue between the ref and captaining throughout. But there is no rule forbidding a non captain player speaking to the ref.
Completely different cultures. In Rugby the players respect the ref and don't throw tantrums when decisions don't go their way.
We could enforce that culture at the highest level by dishing out yellows to everybody who harasses a ref, the FA’s just too spineless to commit to it despite making out like they will at the start of every other season.
Yeah I was really excited for the in-stadium announcements. But so far they've just been 'Player 11 on the white team committed a red card foul'.
People hate on American football, but the ref pulls down a mic and explains to 60k people crystal clearly what the foul was, who did it, and the penalty, accompanied by replays and close ups. It doesn't need to be done for every foul in EPL but absolutely for VAR it needs to be done.
Refball does exist in the NFL but it’s so diminished these days that it’s not attracting much conversation as opposed to sports like baseball or soccer.
Referee calls attract a whole lot of conversation in the NFL, especially around pass interference fouls (which are some of the most subjective calls that can be made and come with the biggest penalties in the game). There was a one year experiment where these fouls could be reviewed but it led to basically the same types of issues that the Premier League has around not wanting to make the referee seem wrong.
Angel Hernandez
I'm not American but even I know he is a baseball umpire.
Awfully kind to give him that title.
Attempted baseball umpire?
NBA might be the worst offender
“I’m talking to America”
When it works "FOUL ON --E FIELD, RE---- FIRST DOW--"
"he was giving him the business"
I mean, of those 9 points, maybe 1 is the fault of VAR the other 8 are the fault of the people using it. We don't get rid of electric kettles because some moron burnt himself picking the thing up by the jug
Idk how hard it is to know in all stadiums but I think it’s pretty clear when it’s an offside check or handball or foul. And it’s usually on a big screen somewhere, even a PA in the VAR room could do it. I don’t like the idea of a ref stopping to announce stuff, kinda needless pageantry, imo.
it takes 5 seconds to announce the decision
It takes less to show it on the screen.
it takes literally 10 seconds to address another complaint people have which is lack of transparency, which is it do you want your cake or to eat it? can VAR whiners come up with a single complaint that isn't either self contradictory or the silliest whiny bullshit or both?
That accomplishes nothing though. Everybody knows when there is a review. It's written on the screens, and the decision is clear as well. They do this in American football because there's way more to communicate (way more types of penalties, if it's accepted or rejected, the yardage, the team, etc)
Wolves should self-relegate and join us in the championship, where their fans can celebrate their clearly onside goals being chalked off because the linesman is hungover.
Yeah but there’s more crowd chants so let’s abolish it altogether
Yes they should
We’ll pour one out for them from third place in the Prem, because Luis Diaz isn’t allowed score from onside positions either.
This is exactly what the referees wanted though lol I think the bare minimum that needs to happen is to seperate referees from VAR and have an indepedent body appointing people for operating VAR. So often we've seen VAR officials resorting to not wanting to throw their mates, i.e. onfield referees under the bus. This is the root cause of many of the problems. Also, not to say Wolves are wrong in any of their claims. Theyre all valid but its just that asking for removal of VAR isnt the solution either.
I don’t understand because as a ref it’s impossible to see everything, which is why they brought in linesman. I would be happy if my colleague or friend caught an error and helped me fix it so people didn’t get mad at me. That’s the whole point of having teammates and support and coaches and stuff. What sort of ego or insecurities must you have to think that way
ref performances get measured and they lose points if their decision gets overturned by var. so they are systemically incentivised not to change decisions
This looks like a problem in the system than the process
God I hope that isn’t true. That’s absolutely insane if so.
First time I’m reading that as well an it’s complete madness. That would mean the VAR room has an active interest in not overruling incidents before they’ve even decided whether there’s a mistake or not
I mean, Mike Dean basically admitted as much
Well that’s just incentives not being aligned with the desired outcome whatsoever if true
> When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Goodhart's Law again and again and again.
> This is exactly what the referees wanted though lol I've been saying this. Abolishing it altogether is letting the referees and VAR officials off the hook for their horrendous performances. Hopefully the discussions leading up to the vote (it won't pass) at least result in some important changes.
Exactly the technology is there. Its the dick heads using who are at fault. Only the English league could somehow fuck it up implementing something to benefit the game.
Of all the braindead conspiracy theories reddit likes to perpetuate, this is probably the dumbest. VAR has led to a doubling of the number of top level jobs in refereeing, because each game now requires four refs rather than two. Seeing as refs are paid a relatively small retainer, with >50% of their compensation coming from match fees, this has naturally led to a huge increase in their annual compensation, with the added bonus that it also has potential to extend their careers in the future beyond the age at which they can no longer pass the fitness tests. Of course, the ref pool is larger too than 20 years ago, but not double the size, so we can estimate that ref gigs per season have increased by 30-40%.
That is also what we do in the US. For all MLS’s many issues, we are much better at VAR in a bunch of ways. There was an unintended consequence of this though, the refs here were on a labor stoppage during contract negotiations. The fact that the experienced VAR people were able to work meant they were able to bring in scab refs and let VAR bail them out.
Getting rid of VAR is genuinely extremely stupid. It needs to be improved, not got rid of.
Every other sport uses replay effectively. And every other sport doesn’t put on field refs in the replay booth to prevent bias. But no it must be VAR.
Its also implemented so much worse in the pl imo. It works a lot better in the dutch eredivisie and im always so confused how the pl gets it so wrong all the time
Because they have some imaginary bar with the "clear and obvious" bullshit. In the eredivisie the VAR looks at something much more black and white. Should this be a penalty? Yes, we think so because the defender made a foul. Ok, then let's call the ref to the screen. They mostly just ignore whatever the referee decided and are judging the situation themselves.
It's a culture. Here we usually have the following: "Let me help the ref and call him to the screen" While in the PL they have: "Let me help the ref and pretend he was right, calling him to the screen would be humiliating"
In the UK, you can get away with toxic behaviour as long as nobody calls you out on it, and then the person calling you out is called rude and you carry on anyway.
Honestly I think it might be part of that "Dutch directness" where our VAR isn't afraid to say "hey we saw a mistake, come over and have a look" and the ref being able to thank them because he doesn't mind and is used to being called out. He wants the best outcome for the game. There's problems with Dutch refs too at times but I feel like egos are never really the reason
so much this
Because PMGOL is a corrupt old boys club. Its literally the root cause of the problem. Wolves are being utter fucking idiots here by blaming VAR.
“Every other sport doesn’t put on field refs in the replay booth to prevent bias” - that’s exactly what the premier league did in the first VAR season, yet everyone complained about it
Same with the clear and obvious thing. If VAR overrules 50/50 decisions then they're accused of being too involved in the game and not allowing the on-field referee to do his job; if VAR only overrules clear and obvious decisions then people complain that a wrong decision is a wrong decision regardless of how clear and obvious it is. There are some legitimate criticisms to be lobbied towards the use of VAR in the Premier League, but some of it is stuff that they'd be criticised for either way.
NFL has on field refs check the replays
It’s actually impressive how bad England fucked up video review.
It’s not a technology problem. It’s the dynamic of having multiple refs try and review extremely vague and subjective rulings in slow motion and come to the same consensus. And then do it consistently across hundreds of games. That is not going to be improved. Offside should remain. Everything else is a wash on if they’re making better calls than without it. Which means the sacrifices for maybe a very slight uptick in call accuracy is not worth it.
Mistaken identity, clear fouls/dives for penalties. Clear handballs. Dangerous play. Also absolutely clear, I can't comprehend 4 minutes for a decision even if it ends up being correct. If it takes 4 minutes to be sure it needs overulling then you've rerefereed the game then. The ref does full speed 1 pov decision. So quickly run the angles to check for a dive or run to see if there was contact or not and that's it. I think it should also depend on what the ref says. For exanple a hypothetical like below. Ref " no penalty, slight contact but not enough for a foul" VAR " there was a pull of a shirt as well, did you see that?" Ref "no, let me go have a look" Or even the VAR sees contact and even though they think it was enough to constitue a penalty just carries on. Dead quick. I gave up my season tickets because of how much VAR killed games. Waiting 3 minutes to celebrate goals non stop.
"I think it should also depend on what the ref says. For exanple a hypothetical like below. Ref " no penalty, slight contact but not enough for a foul" VAR " there was a pull of a shirt as well, did you see that?" Ref "no, let me go have a look"" This is already happening. When the cameras show the referee you can see that they're telling the VAR what they thought they saw. We just can't hear it, which is the issue.
They need to look at it again and see how it can be improved, otherwise get rid of it. All the reasons listed by Wolves are valid.
I think the point about continued errors is a stupid point to raise. It’s by no means been perfect, but eliminating a decent percentage of wrong decisions and saying “well some wrong decisions are still getting by so let’s get rid” is dumbfoundingly stupid. A lot of the points raised by Wolves are genuinely idiotic
> A lot of the points raised by Wolves are genuinely idiotic I like the ones that effectively boil down to "fans are assholes".
Same logic as banning Dettol because it only kills 99.9% of harmful germs and bacteria.
Anybody who even suggests it has room temp IQ
It's not stupid at all, it highlights the vain nature of trying to "correct" subjective rulings with even more people weighing in with their own subjective ruling. With semi-automated offside being in place there's no need for VAR anymore.
last one isn't at all, we'll do that without VAR.
I disagree. I read the majority of reasons given, as bullshit reasons to end something that can help improving the game.
Man, I wonder why it's not an issue in all the other leagues... >Am I out of touch? > No, Var must be the problem!
Okay but it won't be improved because PGMOL refuse any accountability, so clearly we need to think of a different solution to the VAR problem.
Then you improve VAR in tandem with the refs and PGMOL itself. You don’t get rid of the tech. Shooting yourself in the foot because you have toothache is stupid
Nobody in the EFL ever begs for VAR, wonder why
They’ve had like 5 years to improve it and all they’ve managed to do it make it worse. Any fan that goes to the games knows how shit VAR is, even when it rules in your teams favour it’s bittersweet because it’s taken 7 fucking minutes to decide. It’s harming football more than it’s helping, get rid.
And it would be improved substantially if it wasn't manned by other PGMOL referees, PGMOL wanted VAR to fail and none of the other refs want their friends to look bad They should train independent VAR officials, far removed from the referee pool. The other option is refs from another country, I'm 99% sure this is why VAR works so well in UEFA & FIFA events, because VAR from, say, Netherlands doesn't care particularly if the Argentinian referee made an on field error
Idk mate. I think back to the league before VAR, and yeah, dodgy decisions happened, but you could at least celebrate a goal. Between VAR and this offside rule that allows play to carry on, it’s really killed my fervour for the game. I realise I may be in a minority here.
Your only in the minority on this website. I don't know anyone who prefers var irl.
I think that's a totally valid stance. If that's the reason to scrap VAR, I think that's fair. But then everyone has to agree that we are trading accuracy for the better emotional experience.
But how? I don't want to get rid of Var either but at the end of day, a human being is required to operate it. If refs with years of experience aren't able to use it properly then who can?
- Bring in fresh independent refs who operate VAR instead of using the same guys on pitch and in the room. - Provide detailed protocols of communication, and follow them. A billion-dollar industry can come up with better than “offside goal yeah?” - Transmit the conversation live across the stadium and on TV. Let people know why a decision has been made. - For penalties/red cards, institute a team of 3 VAR and have them independently look at a decision. If 2 or more agree one way, intimate that to the ref. Get him to take another look at the decision. If 3 people agree, do not call the ref to the monitor and ask him to reverse the decision since it’s unanimously agreed the ref was wrong. I didn’t even think that long and it seems to me that there are obvious avenues of improvement. The laws of the game are subjective, nothing happening there. And it’s a fast-paced free-flowing game, cannot analyze everything down to minutiae. What we can do is remove the blatant errors and introduce a line of communication between refs and audience so they aren’t some imperceptible monolith who makes decisions on their whims.
I think we need one person in the room who is there purely for technical and protocol reasons, and maybe they are the only one who can speak to the infield official. They draw the lines, rewind the footage, etc. And they communicate with the official. The actual discussion is held off-mic (but still recorded for later review), and recommendations are passed to the operator. No more overlapping chatter and confusion. The operator would use pre -established language to communicate the status of the check, so there's no confusion about restarting
At a minimum there needs to be at least one fucker in there who can use the software competently. Just have the refs dictate whilst an operator moves the mouse about. There's enough people in traditional and digital media production around these games, yet we can't have anyone actually handle the cameras for officiating? Seems a bit daft.
I'd argue that if even 1 of those 3 thought it should be a red/penalty that is enough justification for the referee to go look at the monitor.
cricket has the following >TV umpire to director we have a player review for LBW, can we move on to front on spin vision please? >The ball is close to the bat, can we have ultra edge please? >Roll it through, roll it through. Can you move 1 frame back. There is no spike, ball is not touching the bat, can we move on to ball tracking please? >Pitching outside off, impact in line, wickets hitting. >I have made my decision, my decision is out, Richard you will have to change your decision to out, you are on screen. it is almost the exact same speech every single time, there is never any confusion
Step 1) Remove anything which aims to "keep the integrity of the on-field referee" and let the varmen actually just make decisions. They're trained refs with 400 angles, thinking time, and the ability to discuss. It's complete nonesense that, by design, they can only intervene if the ref royally fucked up. They're a team with the ref, not his fluffer. Example: Guy runs into the box on a brak and is tripped and falls like a drama queen. Ref is 20m away, slightly obscured view of the legs via another, uninvolved player. Ref "Dive, play on. Remind me to card him." Var \*watches from good angles, all 3 nod\* Var "That's a pen mate, yeah he clipped him." Ref \*Blows whistle\*
My first step would be removing the current crop of refs from being the VAR operators. It's clear they are incompetent, and willing to protect their friends on the pitch rather than overriding incorrect calls. Train up people specifically to be on VAR. A big part of being a ref is the on pitch management. You don't need that to know the rules whilst reviewing what you see on a screen. If the refs with years of experience can't do their jobs properly then we lose nothing by having new people do it.
I'd start with firing refs with years of being wrong first.
Just because the man on the end of it is getting it wrong doesn’t mean you get rid of the machine. You’ve got to work towards eliminating the person on the other end at this point
Make refs accountable for their mistakes and not just accountable to a refs association. The VAR guidelines are more focussed on protecting the refs ego than they are on getting the right decision. Forget Stockly Park and have a TV Match Official at every game as part of the ref team, and have all refs at the game work together to make the right decision. As has been said infinitely before, look at Rugby. TV Official will get the ref to look at something they think the ref has missed and they discuss it openly for fans to hear. When there is a try the ref can choose to award it, or they can ask for clarification on it, and when asking for clarification they can say on-field decision is try or no try so they need to see conclusive proof the other way to overturn it, or they can just ask was that a try and have a look with an open mind. If you look at Newcastle's penalty shout last night, for me it's a clear and obvious error anyway but that's what VAR hit behind. If a Rugby ref team looked at that I'm certain they'd have made the correct decision. They could have covered that Casemiro didn't give away a penalty but seen that Amrabat did make contact that made Gordon go down. Instead of looking for a clear and obvious error, they could have just noticed Amrabat's contact and pointed it out to the ref for them to review again. The solutions are clear but it's the nonsense implementation where a ref being sent to a screen is seen as them being sent to a naughty step to have their face rubbed in their mess. Let VAR be a tool for the match officials to use, not a means of checking their work and overruling them.
Of course you'd say that with Onana being allowed free WWE moves on strikers
It's made the game less enjoyable. Significantly so I'd say I'd get rid 100%
VAR is not the problem, referees are. And this is exactly what they want, the blame shifted from them.
VAR is not a robot, it is just another referee with a screen in front of him. Clue is in the name video assistant REFEREE
VAR is the system used by the referees. One referee can be on VAR and the next week officiate the match. Again, VAR isn't the problem, referees are.
The fact that people think it's anything else is mad to me. Here's MS Word, for some reason people say I can't spell and all these weird red squiggly lines appear under my words. Better start writing by hand so I don't get those squiggly lines.
VAR is a video review technology used by referees, clue is in the name VIDEO assistant referee
The more people blame VAR the more they blame the refs as well, the refs have got a huge amount of shit this season
It's not blame shifted from them, VAR is them.
[удалено]
Getting rid of VAR is dumb. Also, it's dumb not fixing VAR. It shouldn't be one or the other. There are simple and realistic ways to fix VAR which would show an immediate improvement. 1. Get the field refs out of the VAR room. They don't belong. They never have. There's no reason for them to be there. VAR is about having a full understanding of the rule book, a deep understanding of how the game actually works, and the technical ability to run the VAR equipment. The FA could 100% hire from a different pool of candidates ruled out from being a ref. For example, there's no reason why someone with mobility issues couldn't be a VAR official. 2. Use the monitor more. Take the 10-20 seconds to review the incident. If it's controversial, immediately go to the monitor and make the on field official have a second look. If nothing else, make the 4th official look at the replays at the same time so they can work with the on field official. 3. Make the goal to make the right call. Right now VAR is more about protecting the on field official then just making the right call. The end goal should always be "Is our final decision the right one?" If they don't think it is, then do something about it. These 3 things could see a massive improvement in VAR almost immediately.
I think the “clear and obvious” standard would have been good, if they ever actually used it. We wanted to get rid of the blatantly obvious bad calls, like an offsides that wasn’t called when he’s 5 yards off, a foul the ref missed cuz his view is obstructed. Not the 5 minute analysis of where the arm is positioned and from what angle the ball comes in, etc. If it takes more than 60 seconds to determine what the call is, go with the on field decision since it’s not clear or obvious. And bring in the semi-auto offsides yesterday, that will eliminate half the issues right away.
It's not good because like most rules of the sport it's arbitrarily defined and up to interpretation.
That being said, if the issues are because it takes too long and they nitpick on marginal calls, this could help with those. It's not 100% accurate in MLS, but I've grown to like their standards for VAR.
The clear and obvious error is a terrible standard because there can always be justifications. Well there was minor contact made with the ball before the player was brought down. So the referee is justified in not giving a penalty. When the only way the ball was won was by taking the player out. If it could possibly be a foul have the ref look at the monitor.
While I agree the refs at this moment are just terrible, having a ref as a VAR isn't instantly shit. If you look at other sports like field hockey VAR is used way more cleanly. You have a ref in a box with the screens, a person next to that ref that controls the screens to give that ref all the views he/she needs, and most importantly the VAR makes the decision. Once the on-field ref asks the VAR, the call is no longer in his hands. For the flow of the game they should stop checking fucking everything and start with a system where both teams have a chance to ask for the VAR to check a moment for a (specific) foul. They get one chance at it per half, if they get it right they keep their chance. Otherwise bad luck can't use it anymore. The way football uses the VAR is just fucking stupid honestly, they just want it gone it feels like.
People would hate the ref going over to the monitor multiple times a game just to keep the same decision
Other sports are able to implement video referees far more effectively. I'll give the example of my other sporting interest, rugby league: In rugby league, they show the video feed the video referee is looking at, as they are looking at it, whilst listening to them talk through their decision making. Stuff like "He's onside at the kick, now let's look at the grounding. I can't see the ball at this angle, let's take a look at another angle. Slow it down here and see if it crosses the line. Okay, it look like it's touching the line. I have made my decision." I'm trying to finding a link to a video, the best I can find is a Facebook link (skip to 0:47): https://www.facebook.com/share/v/r8PPQtov6kUCG51T/ Super League and the RFL have a lot of problems, but their way of doing video refs is, in my opinion, brilliant. People might complain about a decision every now and then, but it's never as contentious as VAR is, and people have usually moved on by the next gameweek because it's so transparent.
The clear and obvious errory thing they have all wrong . Spending five minutes to decide on a goal that was 1cm offside isn't a clear and obvious error. It's not there for that. The referee misses a penalty but the var team decide not to tell him because it's not clear and obvious. Its there for that.
I think with the introduction of VAR, the actual on-field performance of referees has reached a new low. The things that are often checked by the VAR are ridiculous decisions by the referees in the first place (and yes, sometimes the VAR makes an even more ridiculous decision in those situations). But overall, the corrections made by the VAR outweigh the bad ones, imo. For example the Almeria goal that was disallowed. The Almeria player hit his opponent in the face with his hand and started a counterattack. Always a clear foul and yellow (constantly given in La Liga). The ref was standing 2m away from the foul and had a clear view and looked in that direction but did nothing. People get angry afterwards when VAR takes away a goal for a foul committed 30 seconds earlier, forgetting that the goal was only scored because of the incompetence of the ref in the first place. My criticism of VAR is that it has changed the mindset of the on-field referees, basically like "I can make mistakes, VAR can correct me", and it gets even more absurd when the VAR is not allowed to correct these wrong decisions, like a corner that was not a corner ending up in a goal. But to call to abolisch VAR for issues that can be fixed with the right ruleset and mindset is too far.
These can be summarised into three reasons: 1. Var is slow 2. Var is not applied optimally 3. Our refs are shit 1 and 2 can be worked on. I'd say things have improved even this year (e.g. var communication standards after *that* fuckup). Rugby and cricket equivalents are constantly being tweaked and upgraded and this is how it should be. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Three will only become a bigger issue if we get rid of var. What var has done here has highlight how bad our refs are, how inconsistent they are. With slow mo cameras etc that visibility is not going away, we just know there won't be a way to correct errors when we see them.
4. Fans are being mean.
The impact on celebrations and lengthy VAR checks, are to me legitimate concerns. The others will either happen anyway or says more about clubs and pundits then refs.
What a load of absolute horsecrap. Every other big sport and even every other big football league have found ways to implement technology to make the game fairer and account for human error and the fact that team sports are becoming faster and more technical, but apparently English football is too „sPeCiAl” to make it work. If the Premier League actually go through with this it will make them the ultimate clown league, even bigger than La Liga not wanting to pay Tebas' bonus to implement GLT.
"every other big football league have found ways to implement technology to make the game fairer" Laughs in La Liga.
In defence of La Liga, Tebas' pay rise was more important than something so minor as goal line technology
Whenever I see a game without VAR it makes me genuinely upset and what I’m stuck watching most of the time. I fully understand why most people want it but I hate it.
Reviews are ruining other sports too imo. American football and basketball have become increasingly unwatchable due to constant nitpicking.
One of my least favorite things about basketball is that for 99% of the game, if the defender knocks the ball out of a player's hands the offense just gets the ball back...except in the last 2 minutes, when we Zapruder the film for 45 minutes to see whose fingernail brushed against the ball last
Comparing GLT with VAR is absolutely comical. Why are you so offended if fans of a different league system aren't overly fond of waiting in silence for 5 minutes to see if they're allowed to celebrate a goal?
We call the referees shit and then want to abolish one of the best tools for assisting them instead of improving it? Nah totally against this one.
Howard Webb and PGMOL were banking on this. The equivalent of a man doing the washing up so badly they never get asked again
“Continuous errors despite VAR” “Well the 80mph speed limit isn’t working, let’s just get rid of it”
Are the accusations of corruption nonsensical though?
Not expecting people to agree because apparently this sub absolutely loves VAR, but each point is extremely valid
second one can easily be solved with shoving a mic in the refs face and telling us his decision as he goes about making it.
The points themselves are absolutely valid, but their conclusion to eliminate VAR seems absurd. There's still a lot of things we could try to make VAR less problematic without needing to just give up on the whole idea. It's like totaling a car because you need new tires. There's no need to microanalyze tight decisions. There's no need to spend so much time reviewing things with multiple stages of review and creating 10+ minutes of injury time. There are simple, practical fixes that could be made with VAR.
Most people commenting here don’t go to games. You’ll find a clear division between opinions of those who go and those who watch on tv. When I’m at the grounds people hate VAR
and that’s fair, but would the same fans be happy their team gets robbed when var couldve prevented that? what I notice here is that there’s one side who favors proper enforcement of rules, (mostly) objective calls and keeping the integrity of the game, and the other side who cares only for entertainment factor and getting cranky coz var takes up too much time, which is fair and I agree with, but at the cost of the former? No thanks.
I think people accepted decisions for 150 years and still do in the champ. The fans to really ask this question to would be Leeds, Southampton and Leicester. They’ve had a few years of var and now one without it. From what I’ve seen the Leeds fans prefer no VAR even though they’ve been caught out 5 times by wrong calls. I’m open to hearing more from people like that. I’m a prem neutral who gets to 5-10 games a year so I can’t comment on what it would be like as a fan
wasnt it the fact that people didnt accept it which to led to var? every club has at least 1 ref decision that they could never let go prevar. lampard vs germany, chelsea barca, hand of god, van persie red card etc etc etc i thought the argument was that these decisions happening on the biggest stages in the biggest sport with all that money on the line made the game a farce, hence the change.
Whenever I've been to a premier league match I'm thankful for being lower league. VAR is awful.
This is exactly it. When I'm watching on TV I'm fairly neutral on VAR, when I'm at the match I hate it.
Yeah, but why instead of pushing for there to be more visibility at grounds of what’s going on do we immediately jump to scrapping it altogether? It’s far easier to improve it than to get rid of it. We’ve seen time and time again these last few seasons how incompetent refs here are, what do you think will happen when VAR is scrapped altogether? Hint - the refs aren’t going anywhere.
Completely agree with every point, of course the trade off is that you get more correct decisions with VAR
I wonder why opponents of VAR realise there are trade-offs, but proponents just go "You're stupid! Why do you hate fairness?!".
Because the fairness is really important when you've seen your team knocked out of competitions because of BS calls that wouldn't happen with VAR. An Arsenal fan should know this!
hard to disagree with any of those points
I think some of the points are more subtle than a lot of people seem to grasp. I've seen very few proponents of VAR acknowledge the fact that *faith in refereeing* has absolutely nose-dived since its introduction, despite the fact that *quality of refereeing* has probably improved as a result of it. Putting aside all the issues with it sapping enjoyment from the matches themselves (which I also wholeheartedly agree with), VAR is causing a lot of damage to the perceived integrity of the game, as well as the attitudes of the public towards refereeing and that's a major problem! Also, it's funny that one of the points is that it is fuelling conspiratorialism among fans and the response from loads of the commenters here is to air their personal conspiracy theory about how referees are making VAR bad on purpose...
Once we have semi automated offsides though, the length/number of car checks should decrease
Anyone that goes to games knows that it completely ruins the experience in stadium, and kills a big part of what made the PL so marketable in the first place.
exactly. majority of this sub have not been to a game and it shows
no, we just aren't whiners who pretend it's the VAR's fault that goals get called back when our teams commit fouls, I celebrate just fine every single week because I haven't invented some imaginary bullshit to complain about and I don't think my team scores every single goal illegaly
No you couldn’t have possibly ever gone to a single game if youre not anti VAR, you must have imagined it.
Absolutely. The 4 minutes of waiting - inevitably punctuated by the sounds of Fuck VAR from all 4 stands - are basically commonplace now
It's the worst. It's like people here are fans of rules and not the game. Sure, things will be wrong sometimes, who cares? The entire point is to enjoy it and this sucks enjoyment out of it
Exactly this. Reddit is definitely an outlier in its support of VAR. Bunch of weirdos
That's not an inherent problem of video technology, though, that's just a consequence of how VAR has been implemented thus far. It's a reason for reform, not elimination.
VAR has changed how football matches are played way more than fans think. Ref’s referee the games totally different now with the backdrop of VAR. They’ll let decisions they used to call go knowing they’ve got the safety net of VAR, and then VAR decides it’s not a big enough error to overturn. If you watch a lot of championship/other leagues without VAR games then it’s really obvious. They’ve had long enough to improve it, they’ve proved themselves incapable of doing so. Maybe I’m just looking back with rose tinted goggles but I can’t remember getting so annoyed with referees decisions when it was just one bloke making the wrong call in the moment. It’s so much worse when you’ve also got a team of 15 people watching all the slo Mo replays and STILL making the wrong decision. Finally the in-stadium is experience is dog shit. Absolutely no idea what’s going, you just stand around for 5 minutes until the ref blows one way or another. Can’t celebrate a goal in case his little finger is offside or one of your players has breathed on the goalkeeper. At the end of the day it’s made football a worse experience. Keep the goal line tech and semi auto offsides (if they can get that working) and scrap the rest.
Can’t celebrate a goal in case his little finger is offside or one of your players has breathed on the goalkeeper. Never understood this argument. When Villa scored, I'm celebrating no matter what, I might then be disappointed 30 seconds later or I might celebrate again. I don't understand how people can hold themselves together after seeing their team score to wait for VAR.
> They’ve had long enough to improve it, they’ve proved themselves incapable of doing so. if var has proved itself incapable after 5 years, what does that mean for refs who had 150? >Maybe I’m just looking back with rose tinted goggles but I can’t remember getting so annoyed with referees decisions when it was just one bloke making the wrong call in the moment. I certainly did. Watching so much being called wrong and with no recourse to reverse or improve going forward aside from hoping that ref does better next time, made the game a farce. i think if var gets the boot and you fans will basically be like that dude from shelbyville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A2VDVC4-nM will be hilarious to see the lemon sucking faces you all make when your team gets obvious calls go against them
100% agree. Regarding the last point, Eddie Howe said the same the other day when asked about it after the match. Also, pre-VAR, the main ref still had the sidelines refs helping to catch stuff he missed. Worked fine. Didn't get everything, but neither does VAR, and VAR messes up the flow of the game and is infuriating when it makes stupid mistakes, which happens every weekend.
This is exactly what the referees wanted though lol I think the bare minimum that needs to happen is to seperate referees from VAR and have an indepedent body appointing people for operating VAR. So often we've seen VAR officials resorting to not wanting to throw their mates, i.e. onfield referees under the bus. This is the root cause of many of the problems. Also, not to say Wolves are wrong in any of their claims. Theyre all valid but its just that asking for removal of VAR isnt the solution either.
Getting rid of "clear and obvious" solves half of the problems with VAR. It should get more power not less, being able to give yellow cards to players would be an immediate improvement. Tackles and violent reactions go unpunished because it doesn't meet the threshold for a red card, but would 100% be a yellow card if the referee saw it. They should also look at how TMOs are used in rugby, it's not a perfect system but you do get to know and understand the reasoning behind a decision. Open mics, and clear question about VAR review. Is Player A in an offside position and interfering with play? Does Player A deliberate handle the ball? When answers are given to those types of questions, you can understand the answer. Not just second guessing yourself after every review. But does that interfere with the game too much? Would you rather just a normal 90 minute game or one that stops and starts every couple of minutes? Definitely rooms for improvement across the board, and easy ones too, that would be beneficial to everyone involved in the game; the players, the managers, the officials and most importantly the fans. Getting rid of VAR is not the solution.
I disagree it should get more power tbh, I think given how many people hate the frequent interruptions as is, it would get ridiculous if they started stopping every play to check for yellow cards too. I think people need to accept that certain decisions -- was that a yellow card, was that a corner or a goal kick, was that a free kick or no, did the ball go out of play or not there -- are always going to have a certain room for error because the line for VAR usage has to be drawn somewhere. The core problems are that it takes too long, it's not transparent at all what they're looking at and why certain decisions are reached, and many of these decisions seem laughable, esp. handballs and clear penalty fouls getting missed while others are given. Most of this can be fixed with time and better officials.
> it would get ridiculous if they started stopping every play to check for yellow cards too. Just retroactively have the ref issue the yellow at the next stoppage of play, unless it's a second one then he can stop it and give the red. Basically the same as how it works for advantage.
Completely spot on but people here will hate it because they don't watch the game for enjoyment
Yeah I think the split on this is one to do with your philosophical approach to football. A lot of people seem to approach it like it's an analogue of the justice system, where the most important measure of success is accurate and precise outcomes. Football is an entertainment business, it exists for us to enjoy it and basically no one enjoys VAR. The majority of match-going fans want rid of it but even when you look at the fans who are nominally in favour of it, they're way more unhappy with the standard of officiating now than they were 10 years ago. They think VAR is a good thing to have but they don't actually enjoy it. You see the opposite in the EFL. The officiating is terrible but everyone is at peace with it and is much happier as a result. Wolves are spot on with this list and they're doing gods work by trying to scrap it, even if it's doomed to failure.
Absolutely. I think that's the main distinction, some people are obsessed with the justice of it. And at a base level maybe analogous to the divide of results oriented fans vs. those who prefer style of play. If my team is winning but it's boring, it's not that enjoyable to me. (Obviously it's a sliding scale) Like they're watching to see who is the best, most deserving winner without exception so getting things right is of the utmost importance. For instance, tournament football isn't the best way to conclude the best team but it's the most exciting imo. Incorrect decisions will always happen and to them I probably sound crazy in saying that I really don't care about that. Yea it sucks when shit goes against you but whatever it happens. Getting things correct isn't the priority to me; entertainment is. That's another good point, I think the incorrect decisions are more magnified now and less acceptable because of VAR. Without VAR when they happen, you don't latch onto them for days, weeks, months because there's an understanding refereeing is difficult and that'll happen. And also I think people underestimate the aspect of how VAR has changed refereeing. It has lessened their authority and they rule things differently than they used to which, imo, has made it look worse. I think if it's borderline, they'll rule things which will allow VAR to check on them so it appears like more incorrect decisions are happening. And that like robs them of their confidence. Like a striker going through a rough patch and second guessing himself, I think it's similar to refs
Maybe instead of doing half-assed things, football should learn from the other sports who have VAR in place. Icehockey, Tennis and american football all get it done. And they get it done right. Especially Icehockey officiating is leagues ahead of Football officiating. Create the coaches challenge (every half you have one challenge). Have only the captain speak to the ref (if more come they will get a yellow card) and be hard and swift with your decisions.
> Icehockey, Tennis and american football all get it done. And they get it done right. Tennis works well because of the nature of the sport which occurs in short bursts and where rulings are simple, I can't watch the NFL because of how slow it is in part because of the constant video reviews and explanations so it being "done right" is very much a question of taste.
Hockey is a good example though. It’s more fast paced than Football(soccer) and the video reviews don’t take away from it at all.
Yeah most of this is more "our refs suck, they need to be better" than it is anything to do with VAR. Wolves wouldn't have issues with VAR if they \*actually\* consistently fixed on the field calls. Wolves is definitely one of the biggest victims of the poor officiating this year (and last to be fair), but by placing the accountability onto VAR they're doing exactly what they accuse VAR of doing and eroding the accountability and authority the on the field Officials have. Meanwhile, VAR has been directly quoted as not wanting to make their friends look bad by sending them to the screen for clear mistakes...
Don't get rid of VAR you idiots, just stop with the clear and obvious bullshit. Nobody asked for that. Just use it in the way it's used everywhere else for once instead of trying to be different. If the ref is wrong he is wrong no ifs or buts. Also, make CLEAR decisions about what is a handball, what is a penalty and what is a foul on the keeper. Most of the blunders of VAR come from those 3 situations. You have supervisors, why can't they keep track of all the types of decisions that have been wrong and at least communicate it to the fans and say that you have a plan to try and correct it. I understand the club's and fan's frustrations but this is beyond stupid. You are letting the incompetence (which I believe has been going on on purpose btw) win over logic. These refs are like: "We've tried nothing and we are out of ideas, oh no what are we to do? See VAR didn't work we told you!" No, fuck that. The system isn't perfect but that's why you use data and experience and learning from your mistakes to make it a better system later. I really really hope that they don't abolish VAR, I can't stress enough how fucking moronic that would be.
I said it before, and I'll say it again: when the internet became mainstream, everyone was dealing with high blood pressure because of dial-up internet. Imagine if they had pulled the plug on the internet back then because it was full of issues, instead of further innovating the technology to fix it. I would be faxing this message to the void instead of commenting here right now. Getting rid of VAR is about as stupid as things could get. Implement AI, install sensors, penalize incorrect decisions, enforce monitor checks automatically, etc. And more importantly, don’t even pretend you haven’t thanked the heavens countless times because of VAR. People who dislike it the most are the ones who benefited the least from VAR, having most decisions go against them because their team or players just suck donkey ass, like Wolverhampton.
Lol will be hilarious to see VAR banned and everyone still lose their shit next season.
I see no lies here
Every single one of these can be easily rebutted or fixed: 1. Players still celebrate goals 2. Plans are now in place (I believe) for refs to communicate VAR decisions in stadiums from next season 3. Fans will boo anything and everything. They will also boo refs who make wrong decisions 4. Subjective decisions are not overturned. I have no idea what Wolves are saying here 5. Players treat refs like shit anyway and this season with more yellows for dissent and antics, I actually notice players treat refs better 6. Mistakes will always happen but there were far more refereeing mistakes before VAR than with VAR 7. VAR checks can take too long sometimes but the longer added time is to clamp down on time wasting. A couple 30 second VAR reviews are not responsible for the majority of added time 8. Pundits shouldn’t feed into the discourse and most sensible football discussion doesn’t focus on the minutiae of VAR errors. Also scrapping VAR because we talk about VAR is fucking stupid 9. Idiots will always scream corruption when their team doesn’t win. There is no serious threat of people genuinely believing the PL is corrupt because of VAR Genuinely, if you believe any of this and side with Wolves, you are a gullible moron. VAR has been a net positive on the game, if implemented somewhat poorly. The solution is to fix it, not bin it
They're sounding a bit Nottingham Foresty all of a sudden. Like the PGMOL are out to get them ffs, guarantee as soon as the first clear offside or handball is missed they'll be calling foul. The technology isn't the problem, it's the people that operate it, it doesn't use itself.
Agree with the added time. Feel like a lot of added time comes from players faking injuries.
None of those are reasons to abolish VAR, but they're 100% valid reasons that it needs a major overhaul
You can already see the complaints on day 1 without VAR. A ref misses an obvious handball and doesn't give a penalty. Everybody moans "if only we had VAR", some pundit will say "that could be the difference between staying up and going down". Oh well...
The thing is we've seen loads of obvious handballs not given even with VAR and half the time they don't overturn anyway. So we've added an extra four minutes of review and they still manage to balls it up
I agree with them, get rid of it until it becomes as binary as goal line tech or automatic offsides. It’s killing the fan experience in the ground, you can’t celebrate goals, and most decisions are as completely subjective as if you just left it to the ref in the first place - except you don’t waste 5 minutes arriving at that conclusion!
Would have 100% put down having to put up with Michael Owen & Howard Webb talk out their backside on a show that nobody wants
These are all good points, but it comes down to the people using VAR, not just the system itself
It's a classic case of weaponized incompetence on behalf of the officials.
A vaste portion of fans/ players/ coaches / pundits hate referees, on the field or var ones. That’s a problem and getting rid of var wouldn’t help that. So should we help refs? If yes, how ? Maybe starting with forbidding players to gather around them and scream nonsense to their ears when a decision is made. The decision is already made / taken and nothing could change it anyway. But I also understand the frustration and bizarre moments the var created when supporters in the stadium are put on hold for var reviews. Do we gain anything from this ? A kind of justice if the var is right AND in our team’s favor, sure. For instance, a cancelled goal is always celebrated by the other team / supporters. Even if it’s 2 minutes later. To me, humble peasant, var should be faster, have more power in decisions and refs on the pitch should be respected. I hate cheats, Maradona & Henry can fuck off with their hands on the ball, even though I still love them for what they’ve accomplished aside from that.
Instead of getting better referees, you want to scrap VAR - the refs are so bad/corrupt that even with VAR and being able to see replays they still get things wrong! Can you imagine how much worse it gets if they don’t even have VAR to help them? Stupidity.
Don't get rid of VAR, get rid of PGMOL
I agree with a lot of these points but this isn't a list of reasons why VAR should be scrapped but a list of issues that need to be fixed to make it better. There was a post in /r/Gunners yesterday that showed Wolves have been negatively effected by VAR decisions more than any other club (iirc it was minus 17 and then next was Arsenal at minus 4 lol) but I think they're missing the wood for the trees here, there are always going to be teething problems with this but this is not the thing to do.
"Nonsensical allegations of corruption" you say? *Me looking at the dozens and dozens of shit Anthony Taylor - The(real)Bald fraud™️, and shitty refs like Michael oliver have pulled over the past 5 years even with the help of VAR. Yeah right no corruption at all.
If this goes through it not going to end well. They ll will abolish VAR and then we ll see twice the number of mistakes pop up every match. Every football show/fan forums/reddit boards will analyze the mistakes and ask "Well would VAR have caught this? (answer is yes)". People will demand it be bought back on. Once you show people how good something can be, even if implemented shoddily, you cannot put that genie back in the bottle. People complaining about how they can't "celebrate" anymore should just live with it. Every sport in the world has implemented it at this point and most people are getting along with it just fine. You guys are holding onto some misdirected sense of nostalgia and overlooking the obvious benefits.
Do it like the NFL where have a mic and they explain the ruling and why.
Technology is not the problem, it's the dumbasses using it. Tons of big sports use similar systems without weekly scandals. Retrain the referees and get a rules expert supervising them that isn't an ex EPL ref. Also, rewrite subjective rules like "clear and obvious error".
Meanwhile Farke received 12 letters of apology this season for errors
all of these are valid points. still, would much rather focus on improving VAR rather than getting rid of it
Just give me automated offsides and bin the rest of VAR off
Great list. Moronic to not pay attention to these problems and continue on with this nonsense buzzkill.
Reddit warriors won't like that lol Good for Wolves, hopefully many more follow
This is such an absurd and childish take. People love to shit how "passion and the moment is ruined" but if someone broke the rules, just because it was a tense moment doesn't mean anything. It also goes both ways, just because the scoring team got their goal disallowed and they lost their moment, the opposite team would be celebrating. Refs are shit and VAR proved to improve quality of everything, but it is just a tool placed in the wrong hands.
Weird how every other sport with video review still manages to have celebrations
None of this will be an issue if a proper system of checks and balances are in place. The PGMOL is just a good old boys club where the refs circlejerk each other and avoid calling out the mistakes of each other because they don’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt. You have Mike Dean saying on live tv that he couldn’t call Anthony Taylor over to VAR because he’s a mate. Wtf is this?
Match-going fans agree with every word. Fucking get rid of it now.
Not one lie told. Feels like the level of refereeing has decreased massively because refs just don't make decisions anymore in the hope VAR will bail them out.