- I can't think of a single decision that couldn't be made in less than a minute. Even something complex like Son's red card - you can make the decision quite quickly on that. If the club wants to appeal afterwards, that's fine. I assume most of us on here have been playing/watching football for most of our lives and generally I'd say most decisions are quite simple to call once a couple of camera angles have been seen. The exception to this is handball because of the current stupid wording of the rule.
- That point is irrelevant assuming the above takes place. If all decisions are made efficiently, there is no real delay.
- I meant more the actual time it takes for the whole process of signalling, then running over, then looking, then running back, then making a decision. How I see it, is if VAR intervenes the ref is told the decision in his ear, stops play and signals the VAR sign and we go back for the free kick or whatever whilst the replay is shown on the screen. There would still be some contentious calls but I think there's be far less dead time on the pitch. As a byproduct it might also improve the amount of abuse a ref gets on the pitch given he's not being asked to watch a video and make a split second decision himself, it's being done by someone removed from the game and (hopefully) completely without bias. It takes pressure off the ref on the field.
1) I can think of several as the VAR will sometimes have to consider more than one incident at the same time. For example, imagine there's a corner and a striker is potentially fouled in the box. The VAR would obviously have to decide whether the referee has made a mistake in not awarding a penalty. However, imagine if there was also potentially a foul by a different attacking player on a defender at the same time, as can easily happen during the pulling and dragging at corners. If the attacker fouled the defender before or at the same time as the foul on the striker then the penalty shouldn't be given. So VAR now has to decide on two potential fouls, as well as determining which came first, before the penalty can be awarded.
3) Putting such extreme focus on reducing dead time on the pitch is one of the mistakes the PL made in their approach. VAR inevitably means there will be delays, there's no getting away from that. Obviously it's right to try and reduce those delays by as much as it is possible to
while also maintaining a VAR system at an acceptable standard. I'm sure not having the referee go to the sideline does indeed save some time. However that time saved undermines VAR's ability to be effective. This is why the Bundesliga reverted to the use of sideline monitors and it's also why the PL will inevitably do the same once their experiment also fails. The priority has to be getting VAR to function first,
then reducing delays. Prioritising the latter just leaves everyone unhappy, including those who want VAR.