About as funny as mistakes with VAR
VAR and Refereeing 2025/26 | General Discussion
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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About as funny as mistakes with VAR
Completely different scenarios.
Sure, you'd expect more from VAR, but referee mistakes were never funny in the first place.
Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct of the IFAB Laws of the Game, which covers "Holding an opponent".
Specifically, this action is prohibited under the following interpretations:
- Holding an Opponent: Law 12 states that a direct free kick (or penalty) is awarded if a player holds an opponent.
- Definition of Holding: Holding includes the act of preventing an opponent from moving past or around using the hands, the arms, or the body.
- Referee Guidelines: According to professional guidance (such as in the Premier League), wrapping both arms around an opponent is generally considered an offence, particularly if it is sustained or has a clear impact on the opponent's ability to play or challenge for the ball.
- Non-Footballing Action: If a player focuses solely on the opponent and not on playing the ball, this action is considered a "non-footballing action" and is usually penalised.
They were nowhere near as big a deal as they seem to be nowadays. Because there was a big cohort of reasonable fans who accepted human error. Unfortunately those fans were ignored in favour of a minority of babies who couldn’t handle that reality and we ended up with VAR. The same breed of dickhead who screams abuse at amateur referees in grass roots football.
And now VAR means their complaints have shifted from referees being crap to referees being corrupt. Still exactly as unhappy as they always were.
Chelsea should have had two clear penalties. Literally bear hugging him and holding his arms down then the keeper punches him after he gets his head on it. Wouldn't give it for the keeper contact but how the bear hug isn't a penalty...
Not sure I need to say much about the rice one. Absolute joke that you can hold your guy down like that and then also clearly handball it by bringing your arm up to contact the ball as it goes past.
Not sure I need to say much about the rice one. Absolute joke that you can hold your guy down like that and then also clearly handball it by bringing your arm up to contact the ball as it goes past.
Referee mistakes were discussed and plastered over front pages way before VAR.
We didn’t need to stop the game for 6 minutes at a time to still get the wrong decision mind you.
We don't need to do that now either.
VAR is easy to improve to the point where no one will be bothered about it, root cause of the problems are down to people in charge that don't really want it to exist in the first place.
It was a talking point, and it would most often even itself out.
Most importantly it wouldn't halt the flow of a game, and that moment of totally certainly that a goal is a goal when your team scores.
As for corners, who cares if you get one that isn't every now and again, and vice versa, just defend the thing properly and move on.
Even itself out, it's about as realistic as the interpretation people had where benefit of the doubt would always be given to attacking side for offsides. I don't see why obviously wrong decisions is a part of the charm of football
Utter nonsense. That only happens in a world where everyone can look at the same video footage and agree on one “true” and correct interpretation. We all know that world does not exist. You’re posting in a thread that is crammed full of evidence of this.They can't justify it so it's just not discussed at all. Same on the ESPN VAR review, they mention the Rice handball but it's like holding is invisible...
We've seen in the AFCON final that VAR is basically legal match fixing.
There are fouls at most corners, just depends on if VAR want to send the ref to the monitor for if a Pen is given or not. Could and should have been a pen at every single corner yesterday along with multiple bookings before the ball was in play.
Farcical.
More it was accepted as part and parcel of the game.
And we are now in a position where mistakes are still happening yet it is having negative impact on such an important part of the game, as in the flow, and moment of joy when a goal is scored.
People say it's how they're using VAR that is the issue, but so many parts of it are subjective still, and that's the way it's always going to be.
There's always going to be outliers who are loud, people that don't even understand the basics, but it's piss easy to fix VAR to the point where it's not really a problem for the vast majority.
There's no reason clearly wrong decisions should be a part and parcel of the game.
I dont doubt that some officials don't want VAR. But if you believe the only reason its so awful is that they're deliberately sabotaging it then that's crazy.
It's so clearly not the correct tool for football that I can't believe after 6 years of evidence anyone still wants it in the game.
I'd love to hear these piss easy solutions.
I have the simplest one of all. Scrap it now.
Treat VAR as an assistant throughout the match, remove the arbitrary "clear and obvious" threshold and use VAR more actively to ensure that you get right results throughout matches. Remove referees from VAR duty to avoid this mates nonsense and just have special VAR training courses.
98% of problems instantly solved.
Howard Webb is obviously sabotaging it, and you just have to go back to Mike Dean to see how referees are using it.
That's very obviously not the end of the story. Just think about how many stoppages there would be! We'd have to introduce a stop clock system. The game would constantly be getting dragged back to correct mistakes.
Refs have a tough enough time understanding and evenly applying the rules, now you want a whole new set of people to do it? What makes you think they wouldn't also become pally with the refs?
What's your evidence for this? Are CL officials also sabotaging it?
It’s so funny the way VAR advocates have all moved on to corruption as the only possible reason their beloved technology is such a SNAFU.
But we're still in that position now, yet we have endless stoppages in games to go with it.
Goal line tech is the only use of it that is 100 % accruate, so that's where it should stop for me.
If you want to add a really dangerous challenge that should be red card that has been missed then fine, but I don't think a ref should really be on a pitch in the first place if he isn't spotting these in real time.
There’s zero evidence that can be or ever will be the case.
That can be done restrospectively. They did this a while ago and it worked fine. Obviously you had fans disagreeing with the calls and complaining about agendas (which will NEVER not happen) but at least you had some punishment for nasty fouls that got missed. And without all this stop-start, can’t celebrate goals properly, double digit injury time bollox.
I would also like to see retrospective punishment for blatant cheating. Dives, pretending to be injured in the absence of contact, holding at corners etc. etc. Even if they’re missed in real time the players involved get retrospective yellows that add up to match bans over time.
Flip it on it's head. The on field ref should request they take a look if he thinks he's missed something.
Problem of VAR randomly getting involved would go away.
Plus, they wouldn't be undermining him by sending him to the screen, they would be able to able confirm a decision or ask him to take another look.
They weren’t endlessly scrutinised with slo-mos, stills,close-ups etc and endless discussion about the the football merely incidental.
The root cause of where we are in today’s game:
Create controversy
Attracts the viewers
Advertising revenue
Sky
Refereeing errors were never discussed to the extent we see today. Perhaps a real obvious one in a big game but look at the scant attention Schumaker’s haymaker on Battiston received. It was criminal how that was brushed aside but by and large, it was rarely a big issue and things moved on pretty quickly as the focus was on the football, not refereeing hysteria.
Saw MOTD last night, no wonder Tudor is pissed off. Exactly the same type of 'foul' in the Arsenal game against Gabriel and ref blows his whistle. No consistency whatsoever.
For the record I didnt think either challenges were fouls.
For the record I didnt think either challenges were fouls.
Howard Webb has an insane focus on allowing decisions made on the pitch to stand, having a very high threshold for intervening with decisions, and a long history of demoting officials who have intervened without good enough reason. You're getting off more likely if you fail to intervene rather than if you intervened and it didn't really pass his magical "clear and obvious threshold".
Refs don't have a tough enough time understanding and evenly applying the rules, they have a tough time balancing an arbitrary threshold while attempting to evenly apply the rules. It's a bit of a fecking joke that a panel can reach the conclusion that the on field decision was wrong, but VAR was right not to intervene. It's fairly fecking easy, isn't it, if the on field decision is wrong then VAR better be intervening.
I don't think you're remembering things correctly.
Not only was Rice holding his opponent but he intentionally moved his arm towards the ball to make contact while turning his head, seemed rather blatant what his intent was. Rice does not appear to be moving his head towards the ball but turning away from the flight of the ball in the opposite direction. Shocking no pen awarded live and on replay. The excuse given by PGMOL is bonkers. --"The referee’s call of no penalty was checked and confirmed by VAR – with it deemed there was no punishable handball offence with Rice challenging an opponent as the ball hit his arm," the organisation wrote on X.--
I fail to see how match officials can watch that replay and not adjudge Rice interfering his opponent's ability to attack the ball while being held with force by both arms. There's also a couple other blatant holds in the sequence - Arsenal player holding a Chelsea player who has an arm wrapped into Raya, probably cancel out; and in that area another Arsenal player with handful of his opponent's shirt at the neckline which would impact a jump.
I fail to see how match officials can watch that replay and not adjudge Rice interfering his opponent's ability to attack the ball while being held with force by both arms. There's also a couple other blatant holds in the sequence - Arsenal player holding a Chelsea player who has an arm wrapped into Raya, probably cancel out; and in that area another Arsenal player with handful of his opponent's shirt at the neckline which would impact a jump.
With holding offences, it's about where the last point of contact was/where it continues to, not where the first point of contact is like 'most' fouls.
Kavanagh's decision to not give a red was bizarre when you step back, but with one look live, he clearly wasn't convinced of DOGSO/that Cunha could have got on to the ball. It's much more obvious on replays he likely would have done. I don't really have a problem with VAR being used there; that's what it's for.
The Rice 'handball' is the most baffling thing to me in terms of weekend decisions (the non-Sunderland penalty on Le Fee in second place... how that's 'normal contact', I'm not sure). He moves his arm up, not in an explainable position, and towards the ball to deflect it. The holding is less of an issue imo given the frequency it was occurring at most set pieces, both ways, and the fact it was ignored virtually every time does show a consistent in-game approach from the referee and VAR, if nothing else.
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You've really got a bee in your bonnet and are being quite revisionist about this whole thing now that you've decided VAR is the devil.
A minority of babies and dickheads? Really? Well I'm glad to see we still have reasonable fans
Are you seriously claiming you weren't part of the cohort who were in favour of bringing in Video refs and that it was only a minority who wanted it? Can't be arsed looking for evidence but I find that very hard to believe.
Personally I never wanted VAR. never believed it would work in football and I think that’s largely been proved correct. It’s been a huge negative since day one and isn’t getting any better in respect of fan experience and excitement and dynamism of the game.You've really got a bee in your bonnet and are being quite revisionist about this whole thing now that you've decided VAR is the devil.
A minority of babies and dickheads? Really? Well I'm glad to see we still have reasonable fans
Are you seriously claiming you weren't part of the cohort who were in favour of bringing in Video refs and that it was only a minority who wanted it? Can't be arsed looking for evidence but I find that very hard to believe.
I'd remove it from any subjective decision unless the referee requests its support - with the exception being a clear and obvious miscarriage of justice or violent conduct missed by the referee. This whole "we need to first examine every camera angle to determine if the ball hits his hand at all and then if it did we need to have a discussion about whether or not his arm was un an 'unnatural' position for several minutes" thing could easily be put to bed.
All this gaslighting that there was just as much controversy about refereeing decisions before VAR needs to be called out too.
From this thread we could all name 6 controversial VAR decisions from the last two weeks. The challenge for VAR defenders is to evidence the same number of controversial decisions from the entire season prior to VAR's introduction. If there was "just as much if not more" controversy prior to VAR then those incidents of injustice should roll off the tongue, shouldn't they?
If we can get 6 from the last two weeks then if we give them a whole season to come up with incidents that they say was subject to just as much controversy and debate as we get now then let's hear 60 to justify why we needed VAR to begin with.
All this gaslighting that there was just as much controversy about refereeing decisions before VAR needs to be called out too.
From this thread we could all name 6 controversial VAR decisions from the last two weeks. The challenge for VAR defenders is to evidence the same number of controversial decisions from the entire season prior to VAR's introduction. If there was "just as much if not more" controversy prior to VAR then those incidents of injustice should roll off the tongue, shouldn't they?
If we can get 6 from the last two weeks then if we give them a whole season to come up with incidents that they say was subject to just as much controversy and debate as we get now then let's hear 60 to justify why we needed VAR to begin with.
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You've really got a bee in your bonnet and are being quite revisionist about this whole thing now that you've decided VAR is the devil.
A minority of babies and dickheads? Really? Well I'm glad to see we still have reasonable fans
Are you seriously claiming you weren't part of the cohort who were in favour of bringing in Video refs and that it was only a minority who wanted it? Can't be arsed looking for evidence but I find that very hard to believe.
My memory is so screwed I could easily make a dickhead of myself here but I’m about as certain as I can be about anything that I have never been an advocate for VAR. I remember thinking the ball across the line technology was great and was generally in favour when they had retrospective video punishment but didn’t want anything more intrusive than that. It just doesn’t suit football. Can only work in sports with a stop clock or if they’re inherently quite stop-start to begin with.
To be honest, I’m also finding it more and more annoying and inconsistent in sports where it is a better natural fit, such as rugby. The inconsistency of when it is and isn’t applied is maddening. The one and only sport I watch where it fits and hasn’t become a pain in the hole is field hockey. But that has a stop clock and a challenge system.
I suspect that the same people who now engage in long, tedious debates about the pros and cons of VAR are largely the same group who previously spent hours arguing about referees’ decisions; and, indeed, about almost anything.
Rude to not tag Pogue.
Don't be bullying Pogue.
I'd never dream of it.