You do realize a team can challenge and VAR not overturn the decision right? The rules should just be clearer. There is no need for it in football when officials are already looking at each decision.
What in my post suggests that I do not realise that a challenge can be lost or wasted on a non-overturned call? At no point have I suggested that the challenges would be infinite.
The problem, as it is now, is that the officials are looking at each decision (at least we're told that but we don't really know unless play is stopped and the graphic comes up), then randomly applying a "clear and obvious" filter on top of everything which muddies the waters and leads to incorrect decisions standing because they were only "very" incorrect and not "clearly and obviously" incorrect. Plus we have the very dodgy aspect of one team having everything reviewed in their favour and nothing that could go against them reviewed with the same scrutiny, like in our game against Arsenal.
Let me just ask you one thing. Over the six or seven incidents where VAR could get involved in the game between Arsenal-United, do you think that the usage of VAR was fair and balanced for both teams? I'll remind you of the incidents in question
- Elanga being pushed by Tavares while 1v1 not being subject to clear and obvious threshold and Pawson not being asked to review it (call on field, no foul)
- Cedric handball not being subject to clear and obvious threshold and Pawson not being asked to review it (call on field, no handball)
- Telles tackle on Saka being subject to clear and obvious threshold and Pawson being asked to review it (call on field, no foul/goal)
- Tavares handball being subject to a lengthy VAR review and thus potentially meeting the clear and obvious criteria (call on field, penalty)
- Elanga being pushed and then sat on by Tavares not being subject to clear and obvious threshold with Pawson again not being asked to review it (call on field, no foul)
- Nketiah's position not being subject to clear and obvious threshold with regards to interference with de Gea's line of sight (call on field, no offside)
Were those incidents (I've not mentioned the offsides for either side) fairly judged by the VAR official? Particularly the non-handball call on Cedric and the sheer thought that the Tavares handball might not have been a penalty under the same threshold, shows a built-in lack of fairness which stems from the way that VAR is used and the lack of transparency in how VAR is used. Now I'm not saying that it's definitely corruption on the part of the VAR official, but it's either that or that "clear and obvious" is way too subjective for some referees to handle without introducing biases.
If it's only a matter of clarifying the rules, how would you clarify them to ensure that all teams have a fair chance of having contentious decisions reviewed to the same standard? Because for me, the current system with the VAR's discretion to send the referee to the monitor, plus the lack of transparency, plus the high threshold to overturn a decision, does not lead to the correct decisions being made.
A challenge system would mean that it's the team at the end of a decision that decides whether the call is reviewed by the same referee that made the original call, and if that referee was to review his own decision then we wouldn't need any of the clear and obvious nonsense. It would just be a matter of the same guy getting a clearer view and him being able to say "ah, had I seen it this way in real time I would've done this". And obviously you'd have a limited amount of challenges (three for the entire game or two per half or something, keeping those that lead to a change in decision), to avoid teams using them to waste time.