Has VAR been a success in Russia 2018?

[99withaflake]

Admins: would it be possible to add a poll?

Russia 2018 was the first time VAR was used on such a big stage, with the objective being to improve the big decisions being made by officials, and generally make the sport a little fairer.

Now in other threads we've discussed the pros and cons of VAR to death, how it could be improved, why it's working, why it will never work, which incidents have used the technology and the process etc.

I just wanted to ask if generally we think it's introduction in this World Cup has been a successful one?

Has it been a good first step? Or has it been an unsuccessful first attempt?

 

[Ødegaard]

Good first step? Absolutely.
Success? No. Needs improvement before I'd call it a success.

 

[kthanksbye]

Something needs to be done about players appealing endlessly now that they know there's an option to check with VAR.
Not sure what though.

 

[kouroux]

I would say as a first test, the feedback is positive. There are various things to improve on

 

[Mr Smith]

The technology of itself has worked perfectly. The problem is one that no technology can fix; a certain proportion of incidents will always be subject to interpretation.

 

[Sky1981]

Var is always Neutral, it's always up to the ref to interpret what he sees. Var only helps parties to replay, and spot missed incident. It's just a tool.

FWIW VAR is unavoidable at this stage, the football are played in high speed, and you can't realistically expect 2 human eyes to spot everything happening in lightning pace without any sort of help. Forget real life, even fans who has the luxury of multi angles replays will need several viewings to really see what's going on

 

[Mindhunter]

It eliminated quite a few errors at the biggest level of the game so it was definitely a step in the right direction.

However, to make it successful, FIFA needs to reduce inconsistencies in choosing the events where VAR is triggered. Right now “clear and obvious error” seems more like “at random”.

Also, performance of referees and their assistants should still be assessed on their real-time decisions else they will become more conservative (knowing that there is a check against it so they don’t need to try hard).

 

[MackRobinson]

Good first step? Absolutely.
Success? No. Needs improvement before I'd call it a success.

Curious to what didn't make it a success. For the first time in while at a major tournament refereeing decisions weren't a major talking point. That to me is a success.

Sure it can be improved, but I honestly don't see how it wasn't a success.

 

[Treble]

Success.

VAR failures were human failures. As said above, it's just a tool. It can't prevent mistakes due to biased decisions or incompetence.

 

[hasanejaz88]

It has been successful enough to warrant further use, but not without improvements. I think there should be a clear guideline for referees using VAR that decisions should only be reversed if there is 'clear evidence' of an incorrect decision, the call against Perisic was in no way clear. Similar guidelines are used in cricket where, because you cannnot exactly predict the path of a ball after hitting the pad of a batsman, a decision is reversed if the ball is clearly hitting the wickets and not only clipping it (apologies to those not familiar with the sport).

No doubt though, judging football decisions are a lot more difficult because you have to judge intent, which will always cause controversy.

 

[BootsyCollins]

I like it, but it needs some adjustments. 1. Need to go faster in some way i feel.
2. When the call is made after VAR, every player that protest should get a yellow. Takes forever to take a pk F.ex.
3. No players should be able to call for VAR.

 

[SER19]

Undoubtedly. The sooner it’s in the premier league the better. Maybe a little to fine tune, but if penalties,red cards , disallowed goals like Korea v Germany and off the ball decisions are pretty much all made based on evidence rather than guesswork you can’t argue with it.

The one thing that needs to be stamped out early is players making a tv signal with their hands. Thats what the video refs are for. This should be a booking

 

[stepic]

It went far better than I expected tbh. Next step is referees learning and getting used to it, particularly the use of slow mo as per the handball decision in the final. I also don’t see why eventually it can’t be used wherever an error is missed, ie griez’s dive, or a missed deflection that should lead to a corner etc. The ref can take a look at big decisions but those type ones should just be a word in the ear.

 

[11101]

It worked brilliantly. A little fine tuning is needed but there have been no games decided on refereeing errors this tournament, which is a huge first.

I hope the BBC or someone does an analysis on how it was used to see how many decisions it changed and how.

 

[el3mel]

Was great 9 times out 10. Was worried about it before the tournament but can't fault it. The application was also fast enough in most cases.

 

[Siorac]

Curious to what didn't make it a success. For the first time in while at a major tournament refereeing decisions weren't a major talking point. That to me is a success.

Sure it can be improved, but I honestly don't see how it wasn't a success.

Refereeing decisions WERE a major talking point throughout. Even the Perisic handball yesterday divided opinion. Just like the withdrawn penalty for Brazil against Belgium.

Having said that, I had been against VAR, believing it would disrupt play too much but it worked quite smoothly in this tournament. Most of the time the process was quick, with minimal disruption.

 

[Revan]

Of course it was a success. No idea why some people seem to think that VAR is like an AI whose should either make decisions 100% correctly or not be allowed at all. Instead, VAR is just a tool which gives the referee the option to check in replay big decisions which he wasn't able to check in real time. If the referee fecks it up, then it is referee's fault, not VAR's.

I think that refs were spot on using VAR (yes, yesterday too) and it eliminated some big errors. Hope they introduce it ASAP in EPL and UCL, the last two remaining big competitions which don't use VAR.

 

[Revan]

It went far better than I expected tbh. Next step is referees learning and getting used to it, particularly the use of slow mo as per the handball decision in the final. I also don’t see why eventually it can’t be used wherever an error is missed, ie griez’s dive, or a missed deflection that should lead to a corner etc. The ref can take a look at big decisions but those type ones should just be a word in the ear.

Fouls is a bit risky cause there are many of them, though a compromise might be for the VAR team to make the decision on overruling a foul (like ref gives the foul, but the VAR team thinks that is not, so overrules it without the ref needing to check it). For missed corners it really shouldn't be a problem, it takes like 10-20 seconds for VAR team to see if it is a corner or not, and that is one of the things in football which can be ruled exactly. No idea why it hasn't been used for that.

 

[Revan]

I like it, but it needs some adjustments. 1. Need to go faster in some way i feel.
2. When the call is made after VAR, every player that protest should get a yellow. Takes forever to take a pk F.ex.
3. No players should be able to call for VAR.

Actually, refs were asked to give yellows for it, but they didn't (similar to how you really see refs booking players who make the booking gesture when are fouled).

Totally agree about (2)

 

[ivaldo]

Unequivocally so.

It requires fine tuning, of course, but the main thing to come from it is the need to re-evaluate current laws, particularly those around hand ball.

 

[Bjerring]

Success.

VAR failures were human failures. As said above, it's just a tool. It can't prevent mistakes due to biased decisions or incompetence.

Spot on!

For a first test at a major tournament, I think it's fair to call it a succes. The next time I fully expect it to have faster flow and referees being apple to show players or coaches yellow cards for making an in game call for VAR.

 

[Rajma]

Imo the main ref shouldn’t be called to watch the replies as that puts too much pressure on him and essentially it implies that var team couldn’t agree on whether the foul/penalty was there, so how on earth it is then a clear and obvious error?

 

[Jev]

I think we should embrace VAR in general. But considering how conservative football has historically been in terms of rule changes, I'm surprised they included it when it was still clearly in an experimentation phase.

It's obvious that they have evaluated and changed their approach after the group stage to use it more tentatively. That was a good thing for me, VAR shouldn't be the hot topic after every single match like it was in the group stage.

For me though, that just underlines that it was implemented too soon.

I still think there are some major issues to iron out.

First of all, we need to use it only for obvious, blatant mistakes, as the rules state. That hasn't happened, though. No-one can argue that the Perisic penalty yesterday was an obvious mistake. If it was, the ref wouldn't have taken so long to review it. We've seen many examples of this.

Second of all, there's a lack of agency that's really hurting the process. It becomes this weird situation where no-one really knows what's going on, or whether to cheer a goal or wait for an eventual VAR review. It becomes an awkward wait for the referee to signal something. A challenge system (3 per team per match for instance) would create that agency and make it more exciting. We need to try to make it more like the hawk-eye system in tennis, which is much more crowd-friendly and becomes an element of excitement in itself.

Thirdly and lastly, this idea that it's only for penalties, red cards and stuff like that is a bit sketchy. When you have guys like De Bruyne, Eriksen, Messi or Ronaldo to take free-kicks, a free kick on the edge of the box can be just as match-deciding as a penalty. And a non-given small foul in the middle of the pitch suddenly becomes very match-deciding if the opponents then counter and score just afterwards.

We also need to use it to stamp down harder on diving and other kinds of cheating and antics. I'm disappointed that didn't happen in this WC.

Ultimately, I think it has potential and should be explored further but it was too soon to introduce it on the biggest stage.

 

[KirkDuyt]

VAR was working as intended. Still susceptible to human error though.

 

[11101]

Refereeing decisions WERE a major talking point throughout. Even the Perisic handball yesterday divided opinion. Just like the withdrawn penalty for Brazil against Belgium.

Having said that, I had been against VAR, believing it would disrupt play too much but it worked quite smoothly in this tournament. Most of the time the process was quick, with minimal disruption.

90% of that is people not knowing either the rules of the game or the rules of how VAR is used. VAR or no VAR, i doubt that bit will ever change.

 

[Yellow Black & Red]

It's still not perfect, but it was a success, definitely. It's going to be very strange being without it in the Premier League next season - to the point where I suspect that all of the many dodgy decisions will be loudly accompanied by fans and pundits asking why on Earth the PL clubs voted against it being introduced this season.

 

[Kostov]

I think it was a good addition and helped the tournament eradicate scandalous decisions. I'm just annoyed why does it have to be the match referee to make the decision after he rewatches it himself. There are 4 referees in a room in front of monitors, they should make the decision and relieve the main ref from the pressure.

 

[Escobar]

It was very positive imo. It does not stop the ref from making a wrong call after he watches the videos, but that's another story. My biggest concern was the length of the break, but that goes rather quickly.

Next step must be the acting and complaining. They should give players retrospective bans if they got caught cheating or complain like maniacs.

 

[Escobar]

I think it was a good addition and helped the tournament eradicate scandalous decisions. I'm just annoyed why does it have to be the match referee to make the decision after he rewatches it himself. There are 4 referees in a room in front of monitors, they should make the decision and relieve the main ref from the pressure.

There is always just one ref according to the books who can make the final call. I dont have a problem with that

 

[GhastlyHun]

The application has been hit-and-miss, and the on field refs still went for the wrong or at least highly debatable decision as often as not. I'm for a implementation of VAR as a committee of 5 refs viewing and reviewing critical scenes/scenes missed by the on field ref, who also make the decision by majority vote.

 

[dove]

It was a success, definitely. However it's ridiculous that some refs manage to make wrong decisions even after watching the replay 10 times (like yesterday) but that's for another topic. What I don't understand is for example why VAR couldn't cancel Griezmann's FK which was after a clear and obvious dive.

 

[izec]

Yes. I was sceptical, but thought they did a nice job. For such a short period of the time, they really did well

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

The fact that it got a World Cup final incident horribly wrong probably says that it’s not a success.

 

[Grylte]

The fact that it got a World Cup final incident horribly wrong probably says that it’s not a success.

That was down to the ref, not VAR.

I think VAR was good, but as i said earlier, the guys in the video room should make the decision and tell the ref, would save alot of time.

 

[mufcneville]

Can't recognize the game anymore. VAR has changed it too much. Not needed - football killer.

 

[11101]

It eliminated quite a few errors at the biggest level of the game so it was definitely a step in the right direction.

However, to make it successful, FIFA needs to reduce inconsistencies in choosing the events where VAR is triggered. Right now “clear and obvious error” seems more like “at random”.

Also, performance of referees and their assistants should still be assessed on their real-time decisions else they will become more conservative (knowing that there is a check against it so they don’t need to try hard).

This hits upon one thing they need to improve.

The “clear and obvious“ requirement is only for incidents the referee is not aware of and the VAR panel call for him to stop the game. If the referee asks for the review then it doesn't apply.

Pundits and even some former referees don't seem to realise this and people are forming opinions of VAR based on their opinions. Either FIFA needs to communicate it better to them, or they need to adjust the rule.

 

[Sylar]

IMO due to var, all stadiums need to be fitted with big screens so fans in attendance can see what's happening / what's being reviewed etc

I think refs being trained and aligned on it will help reduce errors too. "Clear and obvious" seems to mean different things to different refs. If a ref needs more than 2 replays to come to a decision, then it's not clear and obvious - is my take.

I like the introduction as it will (should) reduce all that holding of players.

 

[André Dominguez]

That was down to the ref, not VAR.

I think VAR was good, but as i said earlier, the guys in the video room should make the decision and tell the ref, would save alot of time.

This VAR system is a bit worse than the portuguese one to be honest. In our system the VAR refs make decisions and inform the ref. The problem is: what is the time limit to cancel a decision?

Example:
a team scored a goal, but 15 seconds ago, the team that scored made a foul that the ref let it go, leading to a counter attack that created the goal. What's the decision on this? If you cancel the goal, you are doing justice, but they had 15 seconds to recover, which in many sports is more than enough.

The VAR still has a lot to tune.

 

[do.ob]

It wasn't perfect, there are still things that have to be tweaked, but overall it overturned a ton of wrong calls and displayed few of the early problems that were visible in some of the domestic iterations. Given it was half a test run and a lot of refs had not worked with it previously it was a huge success imho.

 

[Gio]

On the whole yes, but obviously marred by what happened yesterday. In theory it should have strengthened the referee’s evidence base to inform a decision. In general that has been the case, but there have been a couple of unintended consequences from its application. Some referees have been more tentative about making a quick judgement call and others have been clearly influenced by the distorting effect of slow motion replays. If you look at the exits of Spain, Brazil and Croatia from the competition, they all have a clear gripe that the wrong match-changing decision was made through VAR or its panel. Despite its introduction, this World Cup doesn’t seem to have fewer major refereeing errors than normal. Since 2002, I can’t recall a tournament where so many countries were aggrieved at the decisions.