VAR and Refereeing 2025/26 | General Discussion

Pogue Mahone

In the middle.
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"like a man in silk pyjamas shooting pigeons
Apologies in advance if there’s already another thread to discuss this season’s reasons why VAR is a load of shite but I can’t find it. Anyway. Today’s nonsense.

McAllister sticking a hand way above his head, intercepting a ball that was dropping onto Sarr’s chest. The ball had travelled a long way and he had more than enough time to not play the ball with his hand. No penalty. Because reasons.
 
If someone could take it upon themselves to cry like Klopp and ensure they don’t get another season of benefitting from everything that would be great.
 
Add the keeper moving off his line early and no retaking of the kick - Liverpool lost so nothing Gained but they were both odd decisions by VAR
 
Yet another season of LiVARpool, then, isn't it? It's been how many consecutive years now?
 
LiVARpool continuing into this season and yet again the media will stay silent. Meanwhile United will probably get something for once and they'll go into meltdown like the Wolves game a few years ago and we got feck all after that.
 
Dale Johnson already been wheeled out to justify why it's not a pen. Could be a long season again for VAR inconsistency.
 
Mb194dc said:
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...ter-penalty-handball-liverpool-crystal-palace

It'd be a penalty in any other league and with arm above the shoulder we probably see similar given this season at points as well in PL...
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What a load of bollox. Claims it couldn’t be given as a penalty by using examples of completely different scenarios.

And what does his conclusion even mean?

In England at least, no VAR intervention is consistent -- but the penalty may well have stood had the referee had given it on the field.
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The handball was baffling enough but Allison off his line was even more baffling since that is not a subjective call.
 
I just knew they'd screw up the call today.

At this point, they're just selectively choosing when to hand out penalties or not for handball.
 
The TNT highlights don't even show a replay of the handball incident. It was showed in real time then skipped right past.
 
brian017 said:
The handball was baffling enough but Allison off his line was even more baffling since that is not a subjective call.
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Is there a clear image of the Allison incident, when watching it live I mentioned that it looked like that but it was tight so couldn't be certain.
 
ManUnitedCanuck said:
Is there a clear image of the Allison incident, when watching it live I mentioned that it looked like that but it was tight so couldn't be certain.
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No, there wasn't conclusive proof (at least as per the images broadcast).

The Mac Allister one did 'feel' a penalty though, even though I do get what Dale is saying.
 
Sky Sports are banging on this morning about when Morgan Rogers had a goal controversially disallowed in the last game of the season against United.
It’s going to be a long season of apparently ‘controversial’ decisions going for United again this season.
There were far more terrible decisions than that and anyway, he stood on Bayindirs hand!
 
OldSchoolManc said:
Sky Sports are banging on this morning about when Morgan Rogers had a goal controversially disallowed in the last game of the season against United.
It’s going to be a long season of apparently ‘controversial’ decisions going for United again this season.
There were far more terrible decisions than that and anyway, he stood on Bayindirs hand!
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:lol:

Going back to a decision from last season, which was perfectly fine... But yes, anyone thinking there's an agenda is paranoid and RAWK-like
 
All for fewer nonsense handball penalties, but struggling to justify not giving that one with the rules as they stand.
 
OldSchoolManc said:
Sky Sports are banging on this morning about when Morgan Rogers had a goal controversially disallowed in the last game of the season against United.
It’s going to be a long season of apparently ‘controversial’ decisions going for United again this season.
There were far more terrible decisions than that and anyway, he stood on Bayindirs hand!
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:lol: :lol:

Not even prenteding now. Not a word about MacAllister though. No sireee bob
 
I will just repeat my usual mantra:

There is nothing wrong with VAR in itself. It is just a bunch of cameras that show the officials what actually happened. It's quite literally impossible for this to make it harder to get a decision correct. It is replacing conjecture and guess work with visual fact. The worst case scenario is it doesn't make it any easier (for example if a large number of pigeons individually fly in front of every single camera at the exact moment an incident occurs).

The issue is that our officials are completely incompetent. They cannot grasp simple concepts such as consistency - something that is a very simple process that is covered in nearly every professional job by having things like policies, team meetings, basic communication between people doing the same job as each other, etc. They do not have accountability. They make a mistake and their peers will expend an exhaustive amount of energy trying to rewrite the interpretation of the rules so it wasn't a mistake, rather than improve the standards of their officials by admitting when things could have been done better.

They also sometimes seem to take a correct decision and choose to make it a wrong one, which is very difficult to explain. They also retire and then give interviews, write books etc. Where they openly admit to getting vitally important decisions wrong on purpose for a now multitude of absolutely pathetic reasons. The only official held accountable for anything like this was banned for getting stoned and saying he doesn't like one of the team's managers - admittedly not great but actually not as bad as admitting for example that you didn't tell the ref to send a player off while running VAR, because you just didn't really want to get them to do their job correctly.

In summary the officials are useless and openly have absolutely no integrity, and there is no system in place to attempt to do anything about it, which means it will only attract people of this mindset, which makes them a little cheaper to employ because there is no one to drive up standards. So absolutely nothing will improve.
 
VAR officials should be former professional footballers not retired referees. VAR officials receive match fees of £837 per game, a significant sum that would be better value for money if it was paid to ex professional players who understand the game, as opposed to ex refs who only follow the rules.

The ex professionals could and should be from the lower leagues, allowing less gifted players to enjoy the riches of the game. Rumours of VAR officials watching cricket, golf or porn instead of the match show how little regard for football these people have. The admission on Sky Sports of a former ref that VAR officials will make decisions that will not embarrass the referee, rather than expose an on-field error, further shows how unsuited ex refs are to modern technology.
 
Bartondale said:
VAR officials should be former professional footballers not retired referees. VAR officials receive match fees of £837 per game, a significant sum that would be better value for money if it was paid to ex professional players who understand the game, as opposed to ex refs who only follow the rules.

The ex professionals could and should be from the lower leagues, allowing less gifted players to enjoy the riches of the game. Rumours of VAR officials watching cricket, golf or porn instead of the match show how little regard for football these people have. The admission on Sky Sports of a former ref that VAR officials will make decisions that will not embarrass the referee, rather than expose an on-field error, further shows how unsuited ex refs are to modern technology.
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Some ex-footballers are the thickest individuals you'll find on the planet. It doesn'g guarantee you they will be more competent than classic referees. Every year multiple ex-pros comes out with wild stupid stuff. A few days ago you had your guy on MUTV not understanding the offside rule in 2025. Imagine him on VAR duty :lol:
Even Paul Scholes sometimes sounds like the dimmest player ever, as if he made 200 headers daily for 20 years.

Just like @noodlehair said, there is no accountability. If you make a big mistake they hide you behind the curtain for a week or two, a new haircut and off you go, ruining some other game.

I can't wait to see who will be the first GK to get done by the 8s rule. 8 seconds seems straightforward enough. Nope the referee has to judge when the ball can be played by the keeper, then starts counting 3s in his head and starts counting to 5 on his fingers. How could that go wrong...
 
Sakasaka said:
Some ex-footballers are the thickest individuals you'll find on the planet. It doesn'g guarantee you they will be more competent than classic referees. Every year multiple ex-pros comes out with wild stupid stuff. A few days ago you had your guy on MUTV not understanding the offside rule in 2025. Imagine him on VAR duty :lol:
Even Paul Scholes sometimes sounds like the dimmest player ever, as if he made 200 headers daily for 20 years.

Just like @noodlehair said, there is no accountability. If you make a big mistake they hide you behind the curtain for a week or two, a new haircut and off you go, ruining some other game.

I can't wait to see who will be the first GK to get done by the 8s rule. 8 seconds seems straightforward enough. Nope the referee has to judge when the ball can be played by the keeper, then starts counting 3s in his head and starts counting to 5 on his fingers. How could that go wrong...
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Fair comment and amusingly argued. Made me laugh, nice one.
 
Sakasaka said:
Some ex-footballers are the thickest individuals you'll find on the planet. It doesn'g guarantee you they will be more competent than classic referees. Every year multiple ex-pros comes out with wild stupid stuff. A few days ago you had your guy on MUTV not understanding the offside rule in 2025. Imagine him on VAR duty :lol:
Even Paul Scholes sometimes sounds like the dimmest player ever, as if he made 200 headers daily for 20 years.

Just like @noodlehair said, there is no accountability. If you make a big mistake they hide you behind the curtain for a week or two, a new haircut and off you go, ruining some other game.

I can't wait to see who will be the first GK to get done by the 8s rule. 8 seconds seems straightforward enough. Nope the referee has to judge when the ball can be played by the keeper, then starts counting 3s in his head and starts counting to 5 on his fingers. How could that go wrong...
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Guarantee Michael Oliver will do it against United. If he doesn’t have bets against us every game I’ll be amazed.
 
Listening to the BBC talking about rules and they refer to the "only the captain can speak to the refs" rule, but honestly there's no way that's a rule that's going to be enforced consistently over the season
 
DavidDeSchmikes said:
Listening to the BBC talking about rules and they refer to the "only the captain can speak to the refs" rule, but honestly there's no way that's a rule that's going to be enforced consistently over the season
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If they enforce it at the start of the season it likely will be effective because the number of cards issued and as result the number red cards will also rise
 
DavidDeSchmikes said:
Listening to the BBC talking about rules and they refer to the "only the captain can speak to the refs" rule, but honestly there's no way that's a rule that's going to be enforced consistently over the season
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Like every season they say they will crack down on something, lasts a couple of weeks and then back to the standard.

I'm interested to see if the 8-second rule for the keeper gets enforced.
 
njred said:
Do these clowns realize that no one wants more stoppages. Why does the game have to evolve so quickly when it never changed much in the previous 100 yrs.
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This is comimg from Ifab not the clowns in the PL, money is the reason, it's pretty much the reason for everything these days
 
Less than a week until I’m in here fuming! Oh I love football.
 
Will the GK holding the ball law be enforced properly finally... ?

It'd be great if dissent was enforced and holding from set pieces. Would be loads of red cards and penalties and make everything much more entertaining.
 
"Crack down on" is such an irrelevance. If the rules were enforced properly, there wouldn't be any need to "Crack down on" anything. No matter what they say, the same old inconsistencies will be prevalent.
 
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