Get rid of VAR NOW! We want our game back! (...or not, some are happy)

VAR - Love or Hate?


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Anustart89

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Interesting. Good, but I really didn't think they'd budge on the offside calls since they're black and white.

Hopefully we'll see this and not have tons of complains about marginal offsides being let go now since they've seen that it's offside and chosen not to call it.
 

Brightonian

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Sounds like a step back in the right direction. The purpose should not be to definitively find out exactly what happened using fifteen camera angles analysed for ten minutes. It should be to correct an error by the refereeing team that is immediately obvious upon reviewing.
 

DavidDeSchmikes

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Change is coming:

VAR technology should only be called on to reverse “clear and obvious” mistakes regarding offside, according to the general secretary of the law-making International Football Association Board.

The weekend’s Premier League fixtures featured a number of marginal offside decisions which were checked by VAR, with goals ruled out for Wolves, Crystal Palace, Norwich, Brighton and Sheffield United.

Lukas Brud said the Ifab will reissue guidance on best practice regarding VAR to competitions which use it, probably after its annual general meeting at the end of February next year, which will include information on offsides.

In general terms, that advice will be that technology cannot definitively make a ruling on offside as it can over whether a shot has crossed the goal line, and that therefore VAR should only be used to correct “clear and obvious” mistakes.

“Clear and obvious still remains - it’s an important principle. There should not be a lot of time spent to find something marginal,” Brud told PA Sport.

“If something is not clear on the first sight, then it’s not obvious and it shouldn’t be considered. Looking at one camera angle is one thing but looking at 15, trying to find something that was potentially not even there, this was not the idea of the VAR principle. It should be clear and obvious.”


VAR should only be used for 'clear and obvious' offside errors, say law makers

Sounds like at least a re-interpretation is on the cards.
Sounds like IFAB is saying the FA is using VAR wrongly.
Still don't understand why none of the English refs go the the screen off pitch. Stubbornness? Arrogance?
 

Paul_Scholes18

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I want to be able to celebrate goals against Pool again without them being taken away by a corrupt system helping them.
 

Jimmy Skitz

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Sounds like IFAB is saying the FA is using VAR wrongly.
Still don't understand why none of the English refs go the the screen off pitch. Stubbornness? Arrogance?
Because Mike Riley, who is head of the PGMOL, has decided it would slow the game down, I don't see how it would be any worse then watching the ref with a finger to his ear.

Also in the A League they broadcast the refs discussion when VAR is being used, our TV companies have access to that feed but are banned from doing so, allow them to broadcast it
 

Anustart89

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That's probably the best constructive criticism of VAR I've heard in a long time. I think they should do something like that - It would probably demand 3 times as many refs, to do each frame in the same amount of time though. Could this be done in other ways? I guess there needs to be a human being drawing on each frame, like in the current VAR?

The easiest would probably be to do a buffer-zone of 5-10cm, then also make that buffer-zone visible on VAR.
I agree with your general point that we need to eliminate these millimeter offsides, but with every "x cm leeway" suggestion there's going to be a discussion of whether it's actually x+1cm or x-1 cm, so it just moves the problem a couple of centimeters forward.

I really do think that a lot could be gained by using the frame before and after though as it's arbitrary which frame is used when they judge the offside.

I also think that a challenge system, where teams could challenge any call (while running the risk of losing a challenge), would be good.
That way, VAR doesn't have to check every decision and the onus is on the team that feels aggrieved to challenge the call. For example, the Wolves goal probably would've stood since nobody even considered that to be an offside worthy of challenging, which I think everyone considers a fair outcome, and Wolves could specifically challenge the van Dijk handball.

If they used challenges they could challenge any decision, and if the call is overturned then they get to keep the challenge. So for example we could've challenged the Williams "dive" and got Bardsley sent off instead by forcing a VAR check (or forcing the ref to go to the monitor and review, in which case it doesn't have to be clear and obvious since it's the main ref changing his mind on a situation that he sees again). Now the usual counter-argument to this is "won't teams use it to waste time?". Probably, yes, but they would be idiots to waste time by forcing a VAR check on an obvious throw in because that check would take three seconds, and they'd be idiots to waste their challenges on those calls if the other team ends up scoring a handball goal in the 93rd minute that is missed by the referees.
 

Zlatan 7

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Where does the challenge making employee stand? In the technical area? Is he allowed to roam the pitch? Use an ipad maybe?
I doubt the manager will have his eyes constantly on every part of the game so this would surely be the job of someone else.

honestly, some of these suggestions just to fit var into the game
 

hobbers

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Surely the obvious solution is just to have var checks for offsides, but minus the lines?

ie there are x number of people in the var office with camera views from the pertinent angles. If the majority look at it and say "onside" then it's onside. Make it qualitative not quantitative, thereby it restores the "benefit of the doubt to the forward player".

It's a fecking joke to be called offside for 1.5mm of your big toe. Or for your armpit, when guarenteed if you actually played the ball with your armpit the VAR arsewipes will flag you up for handball anyway.
 

MikeKing

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Surely the obvious solution is just to have var checks for offsides, but minus the lines?

ie there are x number of people in the var office with camera views from the pertinent angles. If the majority look at it and say "onside" then it's onside. Make it qualitative not quantitative, thereby it restores the "benefit of the doubt to the forward player".

It's a fecking joke to be called offside for 1.5mm of your big toe. Or for your armpit, when guarenteed if you actually played the ball with your armpit the VAR arsewipes will flag you up for handball anyway.
The problem arrises when a guy just look at it, because you do want to get it right. They will have to decide to write down that rule about forwards getting the benefit of the doubt. If not you will have people arguing in the VAR room, someone guessing offside and someone guessing not. At that point, you might as well have one guy doing the guessing. Hopefully they'll find a way because it is really not that hard. I don't see the sense in arguing about frame rates, angles and lines when their whole approach is so clearly wrong.
 

sullydnl

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This guy knows his stuff and is worth paying attention to if you're interested in all this VAR malarkey.

Surely the obvious solution is just to have var checks for offsides, but minus the lines?

ie there are x number of people in the var office with camera views from the pertinent angles. If the majority look at it and say "onside" then it's onside. Make it qualitative not quantitative, thereby it restores the "benefit of the doubt to the forward player".

It's a fecking joke to be called offside for 1.5mm of your big toe. Or for your armpit, when guarenteed if you actually played the ball with your armpit the VAR arsewipes will flag you up for handball anyway.
The two problems would be that:

1) It's really difficult to account for the perspective of the camera without using any lines whatsoever. We've already seen plenty of decisions this year that looked offside/onside on first glance only to be proven to be the other once the lines were drawn in.

2) Broadcasters won't be restricted to not using those lines, which means fans quickly know a mistake has been made (or indeed will wrongly believe a mistake has been made when the broadcasters use inaccurate lines as "proof"). Which means one problem has simply been traded for another. "I'm sick of these marginal offside calls" is replaced by "what's the point of VAR if it can't even get these obvious offside calls right". Hardly massive progress.
 
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montpelier

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Sounds like next year the close ones which look off but give the decision to the attacker will be the ones to complain about.

Doesn't sound like a complete solution to me, tbh.
 

Moonwalker

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I really hope the hysterical reaction to it by a vocal minority doesn't prompt the Premier League to scrap it next year. Doesn't seem likely, but it can still happen.
 

OldSchoolManc

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With the ridiculous tight ’offside’ goals disallowed lately, I’m afraid that they will have to continue in the same vein until the end of the season.
You can’t have them changing it halfway through, because that makes it unfair on the previous disallowed goals.
 

Terminator

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This is beyond ridiculous now, the Villa goal wasn't even in the same phase of play. :lol:
 

do.ob

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I really hope the hysterical reaction to it by a vocal minority doesn't prompt the Premier League to scrap it next year. Doesn't seem likely, but it can still happen.
The offside rule/guidelines will be adjusted and that will take away a lot of the criticism.
 
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VAR is going nowhere.

it used to be that the attacker should get the advantage if there is any doubt. This forensic analysis is unnecessary, and I’m not convinced by its accuracy to the mm that’s being claimed.

it is not a clear and obvious error when it takes 20 replays and minutes to determine a goal is offside because the attackers knee is a mm offside.
 

Cliche Guevara

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With the ridiculous tight ’offside’ goals disallowed lately, I’m afraid that they will have to continue in the same vein until the end of the season.
You can’t have them changing it halfway through, because that makes it unfair on the previous disallowed goals.
I genuinely never understand arguments like this. The analogy I always compare it with is it was unfair to scrap the death penalty because of all the people who were previously executed.

If something is wrong you fix it. Not continue to compound problems because people have already suffered.
 

dove

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The inconsistency is killing it. How was this not a pen against Alderweireld? We all knew PL refs are useless so I am not surprised Dean hasn’t given it but ffs they can’t even make a good decision even after watching 15 replays.
 

Jimmy Skitz

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Some EPL referees want to show us they are above the rules of the game.
I've not seen the incident but the way VAR works if Dean said he saw it but didn't think it was deliberate then VAR wouldn't overturn, so it all depends on what Dean said he saw
 

do.ob

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That guidance (actually didn't know about it before) is probably why I don't really experience offside drama to this extent when watching Bundesliga.
 

njred

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A disgrace. It’s been a complete failure. This last act here is all that wrong with the system.
 

Zlatan 7

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It's a fecking farce. City v Everton.
They Couldn’t work out what happened so stuck with the original free kick for offside even though it was shown not to be offside. That’s after the cluster feck of red blowing whistle for offside and then it being checked for a pen :lol:

what the feck is going on with this, it’s a mess
 

MackRobinson

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I apologize to those who were skeptical of VAR that I dismissed or criticized. This implementation is horrendous and I didn't imagine referees would try to purposely sabotage it.
 
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Offside call on City was for once clear and obvious and didn't even need all the fancy lines. That penalty call though was a farce, couldn't tell if they were looking at offside, foul, handball?! Amazing passage
 

Berbaclass

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What a joke, that just there might have been the worse use as of yet...
For what reason. They checked if it was a penalty on Mahrez (also having to check offside and handball in the process), then decided it wasn't. No big deal.