VAR is destroying my soul

VAR is a good thing.
Don't forget that it's the first VAR season in England. The refs and the VAR people will get used to VAR, they will learn from their mistakes and it will only get better.
Football will become more fair, VAR will make the difference bit litle clubs and huge clubs (a tiny litle bit) lesser. Without VAR both Spurs and Ajax would not have been in the semi-finals of the CL (and this is just an example).

And the peop^le who complain about VAR, lots of the mistakes that are said to be VAR's are because the rules of football suck.

Let's take as an example the North London derby. Of course as a Spurs fan i'm biased. 30 years ago Spurs would have got two penalties in the second half (on Delle Alli and on Kane). There would not have been any doubt, because every contact in the 16 resulted in a penalty. Then the game got more physical and more vicious and all acroos the world FA's and other ruling bodies thougth that there would be matches with 5 or 6 penalties. And suddenly a foul in the box wasn't necessarily a penalty anymore...suddenly there was room for interpretation. And if there is room for interpretation, refs make lass clear and obvious mistakes. Hence VAR does not interfere.

To me it seems pretty logic that VAR did not interfered with both penalty cases in yesterday's North London derby.

But what is truly necessary and what isn't done (also not here in Belgium where we have our second or even third season with VAR) is to explain afterwards what happened. There should be more transparancy about VAR and their (non) decisoions. But hey, football and transparancy...
 
:THINK:Is the VAR rule for pens that if you get pulled down it isn't a penalty? They seem to just be letting those go, no matter how blatant.
 
Isslander said:
:THINK:Is the VAR rule for pens that if you get pulled down it isn't a penalty? They seem to just be letting those go, no matter how blatant.
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It's an issue I've been always noticing long before VAR, VAR should make it easier to spot these actions but it actually doesn't. I guess it's because there's a mentality among referees to just ignore these cases.
 
PeterC10 said:
After last weekend I can only assume VAR is no longer used in the Premier League. :)
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Yeah, it's getting ridiculous now.

I'm a big fan of VAR, I think it's necessary, and I think it can provide justice. However, the current implementation is providing more injustice. Which is absolutely mental.

Referees are clearly avoiding certain decisions because they're hoping VAR will override them (and it's not), and when refs DO make wrong decisions, VAR is refusing to get involved.

I want VAR to stay - I just want them to start using it, FFS.

One commentator said that the referees association had a meeting during the international break to discuss how they think VAR and its implementation is going so far. You would have hoped that's when changes would have been discussed. But, clearly not...
 
It seems that in England, there is some solidarity between the refs on the pitch and the refs from the VAR (they are refs aren't they? I'm not sure).
In Belgium, it's the opposite, there is a huge rivalry between refs and it seems this rivalry determines also the (non) functioning of VAR.
You can create a perfect technical instrument, as long as it will be used by human beings, it will not be perfect (and that is also a problem with VARF, expectations were sky high, VAR would end all discussion, now we know it doesn't).

Nonetheless, just like Chris, i'm a big fan of VAR. If used more or less correctly, VAr will be advantageous for underdogs.

Off-topic: Norwich's win against Manchester City reconciled me with football...i have nothing against City, but if a newly promoted team with 8 injured first team players can beat the best team ever (i don't believe that), then football is at it's glorious best.
 
VAR is a great concept. It just requires a few things to succeed to its fullest.
  1. People must remember VAR is not a person. It's a concept. It's just ANOTHER referee with access to technology. It's still prone to human error and is just a way of helping reduce the effect of human error on matches. We should all want every game to be officiated perfectly through out. That should be the goal.
  2. It's painful when you drop points due to any decision, VAR or not. Be it one overturned by VAR or one NOT overturned by VAR (see the 'penalty' for a pull on Matip, see Teilmans (SPL?) tackle).. But this is still resulting in LESS errors than if it wasn't there.
  3. Yes, it can potentially delay games. However, as the VAR officials improve with the tech and the 'rulings to apply'. This will speed up.
  4. It's not going away. It's no use bemoaning the tech. Instead bemoan the rules on how it can/can't be used and the human element.
 
I was always pro-VAR and always wanted this kind of system implemented in football for years, but now I've seen it in action I actually think it's made the sport worse to watch...

Could be the implementation (or lack thereof) but it's not making the game better for me. No serious crackdown on diving/embellishment, some ridiculous handball penalties being given; clearly accidental in real time but made to look worse when scrutinised frame-by-frame... Are defenders meant to run around like they're in straight jackets anywhere in the box? The ridiculous retaken penalties in the women's World Cup, goals disallowed for being milimetres offside (with questionable replay angles/squiggly lines drawn on)...

It's dampened the euphoria of celebrating a goal in the stadium (for players and fans) - you'd look at the ref/linesman and know within seconds if the goal would stand... Now you have to wait potentially over a minute and the moment has gone.

Maybe there should be a challenge/review system like in cricket/tennis where the captain can send an incident to VAR. A defender feels an opponent has dived? Get the captain to send it to VAR and if they're proven correct then the diver gets sin-binned for 10 mins or something (with additional match bans if they do it again during the season). I'd also mic up the referee and VAR officials to hear their reasoning in real-time, and have an official Twitter account that explains any questionable decisions after the match (doesn't NBA do this?).

I don't know - I'm conflicted on it... You want to see more correct decisions and the worst aspects of the sport stamped out (diving/cheating) but making it too stop/start and clinical takes the emotion out of it in real time.
 
I've always hated the idea of a challenge system for VAR but for incidents like the Callejon dive where there is no clear and obvious error from the referee (dives can be convincing) it would work a lot better. If you challenge if correct you keep it, otherwise you lose it. Would cut out a lot more of the controversy.
 
When it comes to diving I feel like having the defender/captain able to be the one to call for a VAR review is better than leaving it up to the referee ... The player involved in the incident will know whether there was any contact (or at least significant enough to cause such a reaction) much better than the referee will.

I guess the problem with that is that if you've "used" up your reviews, the indirect message to the opposition is that they will get away with further dives more easily. Maybe this could be eradicated by retrospectively looking at suspected dives after all matches and giving hefty bans to any that are unquestionably simulation.
 
Don't blame ridiculous handball decisions on the referee or on VAR, the rule is absolutely ridiculous.
Same goes for penalties after a foul.
I watch football since 1970, and that time and in the 80's when a defender touched a player in the box it was Always a penalty. Absolutely always. Now you get reactions like: "he didn't touch him enough". I'm sorry but that is the biggest bullshit possible. I you reason like that then it must be possible to determine the exact point where touching becomes bad enoug hto give a penalty. If you look at it like this, this is absolutely ridiculous. Every single contact in the box should result in a penalty.

Then there ar e the divers. Every dive should get a retrospective ban, no matter if it resulted in a a penalty/free kick or not. If the ref spots a dive: immediate yellow card.

ANd about overturning decisions in yesterday's CL. Sadly i'm a Genk fan (and Spurs) and i watched the Salzburg match until the end... In the second half the ref gave Samatta an immediate red for a foul. I mmediately saw that this was never a straight red. VAR asked the ref to reconsider. He watched the screen and immediately apologized, rescinded the red card and gave a yellow. That is splendid.

Lots of Englsih pundits (mostly former players and they are a pest imo) are talking nonsense about the flow of the game. According to them people who watch football suffer because of VAR. As somebody who watches football both on television and at the stadium, i don't care about the flow of the game being interrupted. I want just and correct decisions even if this results in defeats for my favourite team (yes, i'm one of them, very a-typical and not a real fan, i suppose). I know that at the moment VAR is far rom perfect, but football is better and more correct with VAR. Don't expect absolute perfection, human being never are perfect...
 
Aribo n Ojo said:
Napoli player blatantly dives in box and VAR doesn’t overturn the penalty. Awful decision by the ref and an even worse decision not to overturn it with VAR
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My issue with this isn't VAR itself.

  1. It's the crappy guidelines they're given; 'Clear and obvious error' is so open to interpretation it can't be the rule :(
    VAR should flag any case where they believe the referee was wrong and then tell the ref and let him decide to accept the VAR decision or stop to review the footage (which he can then use to overule VAR). VAR should be considered the default correct answer and the ref only it's avatar on the pitch.
  2. Not really VAR related directly; retrospective punishment should be handed out for all simulation. There ARE cases where a play can look to dive where they jump before contact for fear of injury. However, considering the nature of this challenge, fear was clearly not the motivation here.
PS. Take this opinion with the understanding that I am a Liverpool fan ;)
 
PeterC10 said:
I've always hated the idea of a challenge system for VAR but for incidents like the Callejon dive where there is no clear and obvious error from the referee (dives can be convincing) it would work a lot better. If you challenge if correct you keep it, otherwise you lose it. Would cut out a lot more of the controversy.
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But even if they challenged it would of still went to VAR last night and they would of still said penalty. All VAR has done is added a second ref to get things wrong as well. At this point all it seems good for are offside but then we have lost the rule of give the attacker the benefit to make the game more exciting. I was all for VAR but its a complete farce and does not work the way it does in other sports.
 
Aribo n Ojo said:
But even if they challenged it would of still went to VAR last night and they would of still said penalty. All VAR has done is added a second ref to get things wrong as well. At this point all it seems good for are offside but then we have lost the rule of give the attacker the benefit to make the game more exciting. I was all for VAR but its a complete farce and does not work the way it does in other sports.
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Haven't you read what i wrote about the rescinded red card in Salzburg? This example alone shows how wrong you are.
You are perfectly entitled to think VAR is a complete farce, but your argumentation to sustain your opinion is total bullshit. Iwrite this with all due respect.

Negatrev, i'm a Spurs fan. What was your opinion on the penalty in the CL final?
Before i go further, imo Liverpool deserved to win that final, because Spurs were not good enough to win the match and you have to be honest and concede that Liverpool are a much better team than Spurs.

But...

In one match a team can always graft a good result against better oposition (look at Norwich and Spurs against City).
The penalty destroyed the match.
In the women's world cup there was a similar one for the Dutch ladies against Japan. After that match the head of the English referees said that this was never a penalty and neither was the one in the CL final. I was baffeld by this reaction. At the time, when watching the match i had my doubts. It was clear that Sissoko never intended to play the ball with his hand since he was pointing to an area that should be covered by one of his team mates. But one could have doubts because in the new hands rule intend doesn't matter anymore. It's a hands ball if your hand is in an unnatural position. Was Sissoko's hand in an unnatural position? One could argue not because that is the posiotion that a hand and an arm have when pointing. One could also argue that Sissoko didn't need to point. But wait a minute, didn't the ball touched Sissoko's breast before it touched his hand? And didn't Mané aimed at Sissoko's arm (only he knows that, of course)?

What is my agrument? There are enough arguments to say that it was a legit penalty and there enough arguments to say that it wasn't. Poor referee and VAR referee who have to take that decision with such a silly rule. The rule sucks and should be changed.

Meanwhile it ruïned the final for the neutrals who wanted to see a good match. It must have been the most boring final since the final that the great Crvena Zvezda team won in the early nineties.
 
Stan said:
Haven't you read what i wrote about the rescinded red card in Salzburg? This example alone shows how wrong you are.
You are perfectly entitled to think VAR is a complete farce, but your argumentation to sustain your opinion is total bullshit. Iwrite this with all due respect.
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Absolutely no need for that hostility and no i have not read about what you wrote about a red card in Salzburg.
 
Aribo n Ojo said:
But even if they challenged it would of still went to VAR last night and they would of still said penalty. All VAR has done is added a second ref to get things wrong as well. At this point all it seems good for are offside but then we have lost the rule of give the attacker the benefit to make the game more exciting. I was all for VAR but its a complete farce and does not work the way it does in other sports.
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I think if the referee looks it over on the screen (in this scenario he is doing so because of a challenge, rather than VAR pointing out an error) he wouldn't have given it. It's always going to be subjective but that's the only way challenges could be used I think. Obviously not needed for offsides.

The current implementation of VAR is messy, and was always going to be at first I suppose.
 
Stan said:
Haven't you read what i wrote about the rescinded red card in Salzburg? This example alone shows how wrong you are.
You are perfectly entitled to think VAR is a complete farce, but your argumentation to sustain your opinion is total bullshit. Iwrite this with all due respect.

Negatrev, i'm a Spurs fan. What was your opinion on the penalty in the CL final?
Before i go further, imo Liverpool deserved to win that final, because Spurs were not good enough to win the match and you have to be honest and concede that Liverpool are a much better team than Spurs.

But...

In one match a team can always graft a good result against better oposition (look at Norwich and Spurs against City).
The penalty destroyed the match.
In the women's world cup there was a similar one for the Dutch ladies against Japan. After that match the head of the English referees said that this was never a penalty and neither was the one in the CL final. I was baffeld by this reaction. At the time, when watching the match i had my doubts. It was clear that Sissoko never intended to play the ball with his hand since he was pointing to an area that should be covered by one of his team mates. But one could have doubts because in the new hands rule intend doesn't matter anymore. It's a hands ball if your hand is in an unnatural position. Was Sissoko's hand in an unnatural position? One could argue not because that is the posiotion that a hand and an arm have when pointing. One could also argue that Sissoko didn't need to point. But wait a minute, didn't the ball touched Sissoko's breast before it touched his hand? And didn't Mané aimed at Sissoko's arm (only he knows that, of course)?

What is my agrument? There are enough arguments to say that it was a legit penalty and there enough arguments to say that it wasn't. Poor referee and VAR referee who have to take that decision with such a silly rule. The rule sucks and should be changed.

Meanwhile it ruïned the final for the neutrals who wanted to see a good match. It must have been the most boring final since the final that the great Crvena Zvezda team won in the early nineties.
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The penalty in the final was more the issue of bad interpretation of the rules than something I think VAR could have overruled. It's asking for trouble putting your arm up at all like that in the area, especially with a clearly impending cross. Watching it back in slow-motion, the ball likely wouldn't have end up somewhere dangerous if he hadn't hand-balled it. But we can't expect even VAR to analyse trajectory to identify if Spurs gained an advantage or not. Hence the rule generally assumes any arm not in a 'natural position' (natural position this time is the annoying, vague rule) making contact becomes a penalty. The idea being players should just learn to not wave their arms about in the box.
 
I agree that it is the rules of football which are the problem really - when you have to subjectively judge intent, natural/unnatural positions, severity of contact etc. there will always be difference in opinion between everyone, even professional referees who judge these things for a living... This is why I would insist that you can hear their communication in real time, so that you would at least understand watching on TV why they came to their decision.

Other sports I watch where replays/technology usually work well either use it for objective decisions or at least have much more clear-cut rules. Football is probably the hardest sport to try implementing these kinds of systems into...
 
Negatrev said:
The idea being players should just learn to not wave their arms about in the box.
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This is completely absurd. I understand why you write it, but waving with your arms in the box can never be a foul that is punished with a penalty.

Only two sorts of hands ball can result in a penalty imo:

1. when he player handles the ball in a reflex (example: Jan Vertonghen in Arsenal-Spurs last season).
2. when he player deliberately handles a ball to gain an advantage.

What Sissoko did was neither of those two. Sissoko was coaching his team mates. In the spirit of the game (and unfortunately not of the law) that can never ever result in a penalty.
Imagine if it was Matip and Spurs should have got a penalty? How would you have felt.

Oh and i still think Liverpool deserved to win.

My point is that arguably the most important match of the year should not be confronted and devaluated with a case like this.

All this said, it was not very clever of Sissoko, i'm sure at every club players are briefed about the hands ball rule.
 
Stan said:
This is completely absurd. I understand why you write it, but waving with your arms in the box can never be a foul that is punished with a penalty.

2. when he player deliberately handles a ball to gain an advantage.
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But as I just said, determining there has been an advantage takes the rule back to far too wide interpretation, which we should be striving to avoid.

Plus, I'm sorry, but if you've gained an advantage by breaking the game rules, deliberate or not. You've still gained an advantage, so the deliberate part isn't viable. Especially as identifying 'deliberate' is another thing open to interpretation.

It's far easier to just teach players not to flap their arms about.
 
There's also inconsistencies with the use of VAR as well.

Take this scenario.

A tight call for offside is let go (as it should be - which didn't happen twice for Newcastle last weekend by the way when a player was played in clear of the defence, one of which was definitely onside) and the shot is pushed behind for a corner by the keeper. It was too close for the assistant to decide to flag. Now we have a corner and the team score from it. However we then see that had the first shot gone in the player was in fact offside. So now we have a situation where the initial shot was offside but not given and the resulting corner, which shouldn't have been, was scored from.


I don't know about the other leagues this season but in the Premier the VAR refs are over turning absolutely nothing even when it's as clear and obvious that it was the wrong decision, which is making a complete mockery of using it. Particularly as I think it was @Chris Davies said further up, the ref's are obviously letting tight calls go to let VAR sort it out.


By the way is this ridiculous attacking team handball rule only in the Premier? There's been at least two goals disallowed where the attacking player had no idea it had even hit his arm/hand and certainly no intent that have resulted in disallowed goals whilst another similar one was let go. Either way it's a ridiculous rule. Surely it has to be obviously intentional or at minimum a level of doubt as to whether it was meant. How on earth can you have different handball rules for the defending team and the attacking team?
 
@mattmid

also sometimes they call it offside and abort an attack, then it turns out later it's not an off-side.
Last year's Copa's classico in Bernabeu, I think it was still 0-0 or 0-1, an off-side was whistled against Vinicius, who was one-on-one with the keeper and was about to pass the ball to his teammate against an open goal. So the play was stopped.
It turned out with the replay that it wasn't an off-side.
The way it should've been is to keep the play on, then revise the goal with the VAR.
 
I'm curious how VAR is working in the other European Leagues at the moment because they have made a complete and utter mess of it in the Premier League so far this season. They VAR assistants appear determined not to over rule the referee's decision no matter how blatantly obvious it is on replay that it was (or wasn't) a penalty, hiding behind the 'clear and obvious' error. Apart from offside decisions and the manufactured for VAR rule for any handball by the attacking team, it has been a complete and utter waste of time having it.
 
Random rant..

..man if I hate VAR. Since it came out I've ended up contain myself every fucking time my team scores in an even slightly confusing or controversial occasion.. aka most of the times because who the fuck knows if there was some little thing that in the eyes of the referee is worth the review.

I mean it's surely good for some episodes like clear not seen offsides, or very obvious overlooked stuff, like a guy scoring with his hands, or a tackle that looked like it was on the ball while it instead wasn't.. but when I see the referee come back to 30 seconds before to nullify a goal for some 50/50 contact, I don't know anymore if it's worth it.. it shouldn't be used to punish this or some fucking offside the size of a finger.. I think it was never meant to be used for that..
 
I'd say make a rule where if a player is found diving to fake foul, then the opponent team gets a free warrant by ref to gang up on the diver and beat him/her to pulp.

That'll teach them a lesson.
 
VAR is meant to be for clear an obvious errors.

In the Man Utd game today, when they gave the 1st penalty why did the review take 2 minutes and they got it wrong.

If it takes two minutes to review footage, then it isn't clear and obvious surely.

Personally I don't mind VAR, but it is a long way from being implemented correctly.

My main issue with football is people diving, really annoys me "simulation".
And there is now technology to stop it dead, but it still continues.
 
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