Poll: VAR Vs current standard of refs

[Rioch's Braves 711]

VAR is supposed to assist the ref, but instead of VAR just deciding to overrule a decision that isn't black or white, I still believe the final decision should be given to the ref  if he  disagrees with the VAR decision, for instance handball is not always clear cut, red card or yellow card after a foul, ref may still feel his original decision was correct.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

11 hours ago, Neverbefore said:

Personally I don't care if some decisions are wrong. It's part of the game. I just want it to be enjoyable to watch and VAR is taking away part of that enjoyment. I don't watch football as a forensic, exact science, I watch it for entertainment and emotional responses. 

To be fair, I think this kind of matches up with what you've said during games. I think back to the Branthwaite one and the Bola goal last week and you're one of the first to say "Move on with the game".

However, the concept of someone who feels hard-done by decisions who is also against VAR improving the accuracy of said decisions does confuse me a little. If you don't care about what a referee gets right or wrong, fair enough. If you come into a discussion afterwards and start criticising the referee for getting things wrong without wanting to implement a system that objectively improves the accuracy of decisions made, I'm not entirely sure you know what you want.

11 hours ago, Neverbefore said:

People are focusing on the rules being wrong and claiming that this is the real issue - var is facilitating these rules being applied the way that they are, not the other way around. As soon as you introduce 10 angles of the same thing you are able to make the game as black and white as they have (thinking in particular about the offside rule here). As soon as you add any objectivity then you'll have people showing two similar incidents with two different outcomes and complaining that the rules arent clear enough and you're back to square one. 

...

Additionally, it's well documented that the infamous lines that are being used to call offside are not 100% accurate. It's nearly impossible to get the right angle and the right moment of release of the ball so why bother? 

But thinking about the offside rule in particular, isn't the problem with it that it is objectively decided? At the end of the day, like I said, whether an assistant or VAR gives Bamford offside, it is the correct decision. What people actually want out of that situation is for Bamford not to be ruled offside, which is not simply wanting someone to apply subjectivity, it's wanting the rule to be different for Bamford. The rule doesn't allow for subjectivity. Which means the rule is wrong, so maybe we shouldn't decide offside calls so objectively. Taking the Bamford example, the subjective view would be as simple as saying "What advantage is he gaining by stretching his arm out there?". At which point I'd ask what the point of assistants making offside calls is at all, as the more subjectivity we add in, the less likely they're gonna be able to focus on the objective truth of whether the said person's body part is in any way offside.

There's no guarantee that if the rule changes, the rule will be changed for the better, sure. But getting rid of VAR doesn't improve anything about the rule, all it means is that you've got a person with one view from an imperfect angle making the decision based on the same rule.

As for the lines, yeah, they're not great. But as with other things I've said above on this, I think this is a problem with the rule being so objective. If the player is even marginally offside with any body part they can play the ball with, it is objectively offside. We can keep the lines or improve them in ways that keeps with the subjective approach.

11 hours ago, Neverbefore said:

Not to mention that the very concept of introducing var only in specific circumstances is inheritantly flawed. A scenario - if a team earns a corner that should have been a goal kick, var doesn't look at this. They then score. The other team goes right down the other end and wins a penalty but this is overturned because var does look at that. How is this any fairer than a referee making the decisions in real time? It isn't.

I couldn't agree more with this point, though. This is spot on. I don't agree that removing VAR is the solution to this problem but I agree this is something its current implementation gets wrong.

11 hours ago, Neverbefore said:

Everyone on here knows that I have no real love for staying in the past in terms of football and certianly want to see us moving with the times. But when it comes to VAR, it's a crap concept, it's been implemented even worse and it needs to go in the bin. 

I think it's the best solution we have to improve the accuracy of decisions made in the game and I think that whilst this current implementation is flawed, it's better than what we have in the Championship. I certainly don't think the concept of it is crap, in its most basic conceptual design, we're talking about a team of referees who use a similar kind of video everyone else uses to analyse the sport in order to make more accurate decisions. How we use it can and should be improved upon. I honestly can't think of a better way technology conceptually can improve that without making our players wear motion capture suits.

[Snake 45]

There would be more benefit accruing to the game if Video review was used after the match to identify cases of deceiving the referee by either diving or exaggerating the effects of contact with your opponent (including screaming and multiple roll outs)

Back it up with retrospective bans and fines and this disgraceful cheating would soon stop hence giving Referees more time to focus on getting the real transgressions identified.

Clubs with the worst records should also be considered for points deductions

 

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

It is definitely something football has long said it would aim to cut down on but has just never done anything of the sort. But then referees on the pitch tell players if they don't go down, they won't win anything so I'm not entirely sure they want to solve the problem.

[BillyWoofs_shinpad 1,884]

27 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

It is definitely something football has long said it would aim to cut down on but has just never done anything of the sort. But then referees on the pitch tell players if they don't go down, they won't win anything so I'm not entirely sure they want to solve the problem.

Do refs actually say that?

[Uwe 3,545]

1 minute ago, BillyWoofs_shinpad said:

Do refs actually say that?

They do by their actions. 

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

36 minutes ago, BillyWoofs_shinpad said:

Do refs actually say that?

They do. I don't think we know the full extent of how often they say it but there have definitely been recorded occurrences where players or managers have recounted events as such.

As Uwe alludes to, it's not too hard to believe when you see how players who are fouled but stay on their feet never get anything, but even players who dive from marginal contact or nothing get decisions for them.

[BillyWoofs_shinpad 1,884]

1 minute ago, wilsoncgp said:

They do. I don't think we know the full extent of how often they say it but there have definitely been recorded occurrences where players or managers have recounted events as such.

As Uwe alludes to, it's not too hard to believe when you see how players who are fouled but stay on their feet never get anything, but even players who dive from marginal contact or nothing get decisions for them.

Yeah I hate the diving, it’s the worst thing about modern football, players have become so good at touching a trailing leg and going down and with or without VAR refs still seem to fall for it. 

[BillyWoofs_shinpad 1,884]

As a compromise I would be happy to keep VAR if it wasn’t used for offside decisions. Keep it for checking possible penalties, free kicks and red cards, but put offside decisions back in the hands of the on pitch officials.
 

Offsides aren’t really the reason VAR was bought in and the idea that a man at a computer console has the power to draw a line based on when he thinks the ball was kicked really is unreliable, even if you take any bias towards either team that the operator might have out of the equation.

The problem is offsides are the one decision that can be dictated from Stockley Park, the officials on the field don’t get to look at replays like they do with other incidents, they are just told what to give.
Cameras run at 25 fps, it’s really simple to skip backward or forwards a few frames and it still looks like the point at which the ball was struck, it’s easy to manipulate.

Why would we have VAR and only half use it? I hear you ask.
My reply to that is that we already do.

There can be clear and obvious errors that lead to corners and throw ins being given the wrong way, they are not checked and goals resulting from miss-given corners aren’t disallowed. Surely if we trust the ref’s assistants to make the right call on corners and throw-ins we can trust them to flag for offsides.