VAR Discussion Thread - 2023/24 | PL clubs to vote on whether to scrap VAR (pg413)

[BlueHammer85]

The only thing i would say with regards to var is that it has stopped the big clubs getting ALL the 50/50 or even 70/30 decisions in their favour.

That’s something considering how many times I had to argue that VAR wasn’t bought in just to benefit Man Utd and Liverpool and no one else.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

That’s something considering how many times I had to argue that VAR wasn’t bought in just to benefit Man Utd and Liverpool and no one else.

Er, did you see the VAR-influenced decision to award a penalty to United last night? It's just a bad joke. The initial decision to award Copenhagen a penalty can be seen as harsh, but can be justified (see my post on the United thread, if you can be bothered). That second penalty, by contrast, is purely given by VAR as a sop to the red-shirt club. Maguire's right behind the two defenders, who both have their backs to him! Neither of them have their arms completely outstretched, and in any case they don't have eyes in the back of their head. The ball's trajectory is slightly, but not significantly, deflected, and is in any case going to a player in a white shirt.
There is no way on God's earth that penalties like that should be awarded.

By the way, I never thought that VAR was brought in simply to benefit United and Liverpool. It's perpretrating all kinds of injustices, and is increasingly re-refereeing the game. By and large, I trust the referees and always did. I do not subscribe to the theory that “referee X has got it in for us” and never did. Check out the forum of any other club and you will find the same kind of post, ad nauseam. Chelsea fans, just to quote a current example, are absolutely convinced that Taylor refereeing the game on Sunday guarantees a loss for them. (There are plenty of other things that might guarantee them losing against City, but that's not one of them. In any case there are no guarantees in football — Wolverhampton Wanderers say hi to us…).
VAR was supposedly going to eliminate human error. That is pie-in-the-sky, complete cobblers. Sometimes it gets it right, sometimes it gets it badly wrong.

 

[Stephen230]

VAR was supposedly going to eliminate human error. That is pie-in-the-sky, complete cobblers. Sometimes it gets it right, sometimes it gets it badly wrong.

I see a lot of people claiming this. But it simply isn’t true. Nobody ever claimed that VAR was going to do away with refereeing errors. The intention was always that it would decrease the number of errors.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

I see a lot of people claiming this. But it simply isn’t true. Nobody ever claimed that VAR was going to do away with refereeing errors. The intention was always that it would decrease the number of errors.

Fine. Can you quantify that? Because I can't. Have you seen it quantified by any neutral authority? I haven't.
What I see is that, certainly, VAR is rectifying glaring errors by some referees. Clear and obvious mistakes — which is what it was supposed to be. It is also introducing errors that the ref would not otherwise have made. Because apparently, and oddly, no ref dares to go against the monitor. What is happening is not that Stockley Park is advising the referee, but that they are in effect taking a decision that the referee then feels obliged to rubber stamp.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

I see a lot of people claiming this. But it simply isn’t true. Nobody ever claimed that VAR was going to do away with refereeing errors. The intention was always that it would decrease the number of errors.

Like he said put some stats around that. Not from PGMOL or VAR operators because they will tell us anything to justify their jobs. But has it actually redeuced errors? We dont know.
What we do know is it feels worse. It has introduced so many bad things. We no longer know what handball is, (the refs used to know!). Same with fouls.

For me the question is would the game as a whole improve if they rolled back VAR. For me it would.
We wouldn't have this over-analysis,
we wouldn't have people sitting around waiting for a simple decision to be made.
We wouldn't have the politicisation of decisions that we're seeing now with lfc asking for replays, Arsenal with their shenanigans. Its actually a risk to the game.
We wouldn't see the game being refereed twice with some obscure person in the background making calls on stuff.
We wouldn't have to watch programmes specifically set up to answer to the shit we're seeing (Nerver had to do that when it was just the ref)
I cant even think of the rest of the shit that NEVER existed before VAR.

AutoVAR on offsides is about the limit of VAR.

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

Er, did you see the VAR-influenced decision to award a penalty to United last night? It's just a bad joke. The initial decision to award Copenhagen a penalty can be seen as harsh, but can be justified (see my post on the United thread, if you can be bothered). That second penalty, by contrast, is purely given by VAR as a sop to the red-shirt club. Maguire's right behind the two defenders, who both have their backs to him! Neither of them have their arms completely outstretched, and in any case they don't have eyes in the back of their head. The ball's trajectory is slightly, but not significantly, deflected, and is in any case going to a player in a white shirt.
There is no way on God's earth that penalties like that should be awarded.

By the way, I never thought that VAR was brought in simply to benefit United and Liverpool. It's perpretrating all kinds of injustices, and is increasingly re-refereeing the game. By and large, I trust the referees and always did. I do not subscribe to the theory that “referee X has got it in for us” and never did. Check out the forum of any other club and you will find the same kind of post, ad nauseam. Chelsea fans, just to quote a current example, are absolutely convinced that Taylor refereeing the game on Sunday guarantees a loss for them. (There are plenty of other things that might guarantee them losing against City, but that's not one of them. In any case there are no guarantees in football — Wolverhampton Wanderers say hi to us…).
VAR was supposedly going to eliminate human error. That is pie-in-the-sky, complete cobblers. Sometimes it gets it right, sometimes it gets it badly wrong.

I agree with many of your points but I don’t agree on your initial one.

In my view the fact that either of those handballs are penalties is an absolute joke but once the ref has given the first he simply has to give the second. The Maguire handball is also less than a yard away from the attacker knocking the ball on - he’s literally kicked the ball onto his hand from right next to him. If proximity and orientation is the argument against the second penalty then it also has to be the argument against the first. The problem here is that certain referees in the CL give handball for literally anything - and we’ve both benefited and suffered from that.

Put it this way (and I know this isn’t the crux of your argument as you’ve highlighted in your follow-up but just speaking more generally), if the referees are using VAR to systematically benefit the red shirt teams then it can’t be stressed how much of a shit job they’re doing. And I am somebody who believes that some referees have a subconscious level of implicit bias towards certain teams.

There’s no winners with VAR in its current form, just losers and complete incompetence on the part of the authorities and officials. On any given day there isn’t a team in the league that might not be fucked over by a bad VAR decision. Liverpool know this. Arsenal found out v Brentford last year. In our recent derby match it would have been the easiest thing in the world to not award us that penalty for the pull on Rodri - yet we got it.

 

[Stephen230]

Like he said put some stats around that. Not from PGMOL or VAR operators because they will tell us anything to justify their jobs. But has it actually redeuced errors? We dont know.
What we do know is it feels worse. It has introduced so many bad things. We no longer know what handball is, (the refs used to know!). Same with fouls.

For me the question is would the game as a whole improve if they rolled back VAR. For me it would.
We wouldn't have this over-analysis,
we wouldn't have people sitting around waiting for a simple decision to be made.
We wouldn't have the politicisation of decisions that we're seeing now with lfc asking for replays, Arsenal with their shenanigans. Its actually a risk to the game.
We wouldn't see the game being refereed twice with some obscure person in the background making calls on stuff.
We wouldn't have to watch programmes specifically set up to answer to the shit we're seeing (Nerver had to do that when it was just the ref)
I cant even think of the rest of the shit that NEVER existed before VAR.

AutoVAR on offsides is about the limit of VAR.

I didn’t claim it had reduced errors. I said that was the intention.

People incorrectly repeatedly claiming that they were promised it would irradiate errors altogether, were always in for a disappointment, no matter how well things went.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Like he said put some stats around that. Not from PGMOL or VAR operators because they will tell us anything to justify their jobs. But has it actually redeuced errors? We dont know.
What we do know is it feels worse. It has introduced so many bad things. We no longer know what handball is, (the refs used to know!). Same with fouls.

For me the question is would the game as a whole improve if they rolled back VAR. For me it would.
We wouldn't have this over-analysis,
we wouldn't have people sitting around waiting for a simple decision to be made.
We wouldn't have the politicisation of decisions that we're seeing now with lfc asking for replays, Arsenal with their shenanigans. Its actually a risk to the game.
We wouldn't see the game being refereed twice with some obscure person in the background making calls on stuff.
We wouldn't have to watch programmes specifically set up to answer to the shit we're seeing (Nerver had to do that when it was just the ref)
I cant even think of the rest of the shit that NEVER existed before VAR.

AutoVAR on offsides is about the limit of VAR.

Well said.
Just like to add that I absolutely don't want to be sat around as in rugby listening in on what's said from the stand to the ref for 45 seconds or beyond, sometimes (which seems like an awfully long time to me). Some people on here have asked for it. One of the major reasons why I much prefer football to rugby, and always have, is that football flows. When it flows as played by the likes of Cruyff, Pélé, Maradona, Messi, it attains the blissful heights and that is why it is known the world over as the Beautiful Game. (Yes, when Jonah Lomu played rugby, it flowed, too — with constant stoppages for penalties that I often don't even understand the reason for, that seems a long time ago). The fewer stoppages there are in football the better. Already, VAR is stopping the game for one, two, three minutes while we sit around — and the players stand around — like charlies in the stadium. I don't want to eavesdrop on people talking into someone's earpiece. I want a figure in authority, aided by two officials on the touchline and a fourth official who, collectively, by and large, I can trust.

 

[TinFoilHat]

I must be one of the few who would be happy if the IFAB ruled that a VAR decision was given a 5 minute window where the clock was stopped, rather than added at the end of the half to make the correct decision. At least that way fans inside the ground know they've got 5 mins to go for a piss, down a pint of it in the concourse whilst the correct decision was being made.

The past couple of weeks I perceive they are shit scared of doing another Spurs hence why they are taking their time in making decisions In the PL.

I've supported VAR and the introduction of semi automated offsides will also help next season. My only issue with it is how it can used to manipulate results which has occured too many times.

I wonder if the Chavs games was their retribution to Spurs. OliVAR rarely that card happy.

 

[stonerblue]

Well said.
Just like to add that I absolutely don't want to be sat around as in rugby listening in on what's said from the stand to the ref for 45 seconds or beyond, sometimes (which seems like an awfully long time to me). Some people on here have asked for it. One of the major reasons why I much prefer football to rugby, and always have, is that football flows. When it flows as played by the likes of Cruyff, Pélé, Maradona, Messi, it attains the blissful heights and that is why it is known the world over as the Beautiful Game. (Yes, when Jonah Lomu played rugby, it flowed, too — with constant stoppages for penalties that I often don't even understand the reason for, that seems a long time ago). The fewer stoppages there are in football the better. Already, VAR is stopping the game for one, two, three minutes while we sit around — and the players stand around — like charlies in the stadium. I don't want to eavesdrop on people talking into someone's earpiece. I want a figure in authority, aided by two officials on the touchline and a fourth official who, collectively, by and large, I can trust.

All of that