VAR Discussion Thread | 2024/25

[Coljj]

 

[Andy TheCatalyst Morrison]

Not the penalty. That wouldn’t have been given.

Offside was 13 seconds before flag went up so clearly some VAR communication.

Not sure why some get the hump when VAR helps get the right verdict , I’d feel robbed if that penalty wasn’t given and the Liverpool goal allowed to stand.

Haven’t we already had this discussion about the offside? Much more likely that it was a conversation between ref and linesman then VAR getting involved at that stage. You appeared to agree with that at the time but now are repeating your claim that VAR was involved. Tough to work out why you’d do that …

 

[johnnytapia]

Haven’t we already had this discussion about the offside? Much more likely that it was a conversation between ref and linesman then VAR getting involved at that stage. You appeared to agree with that at the time but now are repeating your claim that VAR was involved. Tough to work out why you’d do that …

As Webb says, VAR agreed with the ONFIELD decision. The decision taken by ref and. Lino THEN confirmed by VAR.
fuck all to do with VAR having a word with the Lino.

 

[BlueHammer85]

As Webb says, VAR agreed with the ONFIELD decision. The decision taken by ref and. Lino THEN confirmed by VAR.
fuck all to do with VAR having a word with the Lino.

Fair enough, I’ll take that back. Well done to the on-field officials on that one and confirming it with VAR - zero harm done and better for the game.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

As Webb says, VAR agreed with the ONFIELD decision. The decision taken by ref and. Lino THEN confirmed by VAR.
fuck all to do with VAR having a word with the Lino.

You can hear from the audio that VAR got immediately involved, before the "onfield" decision was made. The VAR had a word not with the LINO but with the REF which caused the REF to make the decision. The REF heard the VAR / AR2 argue interference and that's what the ref gave as the onfield decision.

So when we refer to what the onfield decision was in this case, after hearing the audio, it was VAR who advised the REF to rule offsides to begin with, as the onfield decision, before the official review started. In the video, as pointed out by the man interviewing Webb, the way the laws are written for offside do not seem to cover this situation.

With the way the offsides rule is written, it talks about the player needing to "clearly" obstruct the opponent's (in this case the keeper's) line of vision. Then there's "making an obvious action which clearly impacts the ability of of an opponent to play the ball".

The "obvious" action might have been an obvious action to avoid the ball whilst in an offside position, but it didn't "clearly" impact the ability of the keeper to play the ball. Maybe it "arguably" impacted the ability of the keeper but not "clearly". The keeper appeared to see the ball just fine and reacted to the ball as he would. If the offsides law said that any obvious action that prevented an offsides player from contacting the ball would be considered offside, then that would be one thing. But that's not the way the law is written.

With the way the law is written, his interference did not appear to meet the required threshold of clearly obstructing the keeper's vision or preventing the keeper from playing the ball. I don't see how either of those aspects were met.

You can see Robertson and Doku locked up right in front of the keeper prior to the corner being kicked, at this point Robertson is still onside, then they release and Doku moves forward whilst Robertson becomes offside, then he moves away and ducks the header.

The decision seemed to be made not by the referee, not by the lino, and not by the VARs during the VAR decision. But by the AR2 who contacted the REF right as the ball hit the back of the net in which he argued there was interference. This ironically instinctive decision in real-time by the VAR seemed to determine the decision, because once the ref accepted this and ruled it as his "late" onfield decision, then that decision needed further evidence to overturn.

While interference could certainly be argued here, similarly to how it was argued in the United Forest match or in other situations, the process through which this decision was made was highly flawed and problematic on a number of levels.

 

[Cassandra]

In my view there is no right or wrong decision, both allowing the goal or disallowing the goal have reasonable arguments.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

Isn't it weird that the day after Liverpool lose, and one of the goals was a contentious offside, the BBC open up a debate, for everyone, to discuss how the beautiful game needs to change.

Impeccable timing!

It's annoying isn't it. The biggest benefactors of VAR become the victims, and City needed help to win. All it takes it one decision for this to happen.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

A very tense Ref Watch in which Dermy struggles to explain the process of the decision making involved, which he explains was "very different" than the one at Wolves in which Kavanagh was also involved, in that case he made the decision and went to the monitor but here he didn't.



This goes to show how wildly inconsistent and different the process was here, and Kavanagh is a referee known to defer to VAR and that's certainly what was observed in this match. Kavanagh is also being accused of being a City fan given what is now seen as a string of contentious pro City decisions.

Man City vs Liverpool referee has been at center of 3 VAR controversies

Liverpool was denied an equalizer during the team's 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday, with Virgil van Dijk's goal controversially ruled out for offside by VAR

www.liverpool.com

I don't know if his decision would have been different had he gone to the monitor here, maybe he was under too much pressure to go to the monitor here after what happened against Wolves, maybe this time he thought to just go with the AVAR's guidance but for the AVAR to affect his onfield decision like that, this is not something we are used to.

And however you view the incident, whoever you support, the process that played out there is in no way satisfactory. To have a delayed offsides decision made by the referee 13 seconds after a goal was scored, during Liverpool's celebration, from their perspective is especially cruel and unusual. Imagine if that happened to City. Now I'm not defending their fans or their incessant complaining, but this was a horrendous use of VAR and was hugely disruptive to the match.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

I thought that the audio suggests that initially all Oliver/VAR did was to confirm that Robertson was in an offside position, but not that it was offside (not VAR's place to say).

Then when ref+linesman had a brief exchange, VAR said that the decision was supported.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

The fix for the Liverpool VAR problem was that it was Liverpool. If that happens to any other club its not as controversial.

It all gets political when it is utd and Liverpool. We're discussing it because it impacted Liverpool. And that's when the rules change too.

 

[ancoats]

Well played, VAR and PGMOL for coming out and clearing it up. The Right call was on the pitch
Liverpool got beaten by the better team and not by the VAR team or the match officials.

17 other teams in the Premier League are told to get over it and move on, we know the 3 other teams that think they own the right to being given a helping hand because of the badge and so-called history

It sort of overshadows the brilliance of the Manchester City display and goes under the radar that Liverpool took a beating and is in trouble after the £500 million injection to the team that just won the league 4 months ago

 

[Stephen230]

You can hear from the audio that VAR got immediately involved, before the "onfield" decision was made. The VAR had a word not with the LINO but with the REF which caused the REF to make the decision. The REF heard the VAR / AR2 argue interference and that's what the ref gave as the onfield decision.

So when we refer to what the onfield decision was in this case, after hearing the audio, it was VAR who advised the REF to rule offsides to begin with, as the onfield decision, before the official review started. In the video, as pointed out by the man interviewing Webb, the way the laws are written for offside do not seem to cover this situation.

With the way the offsides rule is written, it talks about the player needing to "clearly" obstruct the opponent's (in this case the keeper's) line of vision. Then there's "making an obvious action which clearly impacts the ability of of an opponent to play the ball".

The "obvious" action might have been an obvious action to avoid the ball whilst in an offside position, but it didn't "clearly" impact the ability of the keeper to play the ball. Maybe it "arguably" impacted the ability of the keeper but not "clearly". The keeper appeared to see the ball just fine and reacted to the ball as he would. If the offsides law said that any obvious action that prevented an offsides player from contacting the ball would be considered offside, then that would be one thing. But that's not the way the law is written.

With the way the law is written, his interference did not appear to meet the required threshold of clearly obstructing the keeper's vision or preventing the keeper from playing the ball. I don't see how either of those aspects were met.

You can see Robertson and Doku locked up right in front of the keeper prior to the corner being kicked, at this point Robertson is still onside, then they release and Doku moves forward whilst Robertson becomes offside, then he moves away and ducks the header.

The decision seemed to be made not by the referee, not by the lino, and not by the VARs during the VAR decision. But by the AR2 who contacted the REF right as the ball hit the back of the net in which he argued there was interference. This ironically instinctive decision in real-time by the VAR seemed to determine the decision, because once the ref accepted this and ruled it as his "late" onfield decision, then that decision needed further evidence to overturn.

While interference could certainly be argued here, similarly to how it was argued in the United Forest match or in other situations, the process through which this decision was made was highly flawed and problematic on a number of levels.

I think you need to rewatch it mate.

There is literally not a single word spoken by anybody in the VAR room until after the referee and linesman have discussed it, the referee blows his whistle and states ‘The onfield decision is offside.’

The very first words we hear from the VAR are ‘The onfield decision is offside.’

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

I think you need to rewatch it mate.

There is literally not a single word spoken by anybody in the VAR room until after the referee and linesman have discussed it, the referee blows his whistle and states ‘The onfield decision is offside.’

The very first words we hear from the VAR are ‘The onfield decision is offside.’

I was referring to the AR2 communication with the Referee as VAR involvement. When we talk about an onfield decision, that typically involves the referee making his own decision based on what he saw or the lino raising his flag based on what he saw.

What happened here was unusual in that the AR (VAR stands for Video - AR) got involved immediately and didn't do what he normally would do which would just be to either flag the offside or keep it down so it would go to review. Instead he contacts the ref and makes an argument for interference. The AR2 got involved immediately which ended up determining the decision following the VAR review, which is largely what created the controversy. The AR didn't have to do that, if he would have just done his job, then the incident could have been reviewed properly without the presumption of interference being established prior to the review.

 

[Andy TheCatalyst Morrison]

I was referring to the AR2 communication with the Referee as VAR involvement. When we talk about an onfield decision, that typically involves the referee making his own decision based on what he saw or the lino raising his flag based on what he saw.

What happened here was unusual in that the AR (VAR stands for Video - AR) got involved immediately and didn't do what he normally would do which would just be to either flag the offside or keep it down so it would go to review. Instead he contacts the ref and makes an argument for interference. The AR2 got involved immediately which ended up determining the decision following the VAR review, which is largely what created the controversy. The AR didn't have to do that, if he would have just done his job, then the incident could have been reviewed properly without the presumption of interference being established prior to the review.

Yeah and the V in VAR stands for VIDEO, so saying that VAR got involved immediately is nonsense

 

[Dannyblue52]

Goal should have stood, we would be fuming if that was not given

 

[Dannyblue52]

You missed the push then? Obvious foul!

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

Yeah and the V in VAR stands for VIDEO, so saying that VAR got involved immediately is nonsense

Ok, let me clarify. The Assistant Referee got involved immediately and his involvement shaped the VAR decision that followed.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Before VAR, Jamaica would have been awarded a penalty and gone to the World Cup instead of Curaçao.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

Before VAR, Jamaica would have been awarded a penalty and gone to the World Cup instead of Curaçao.

In order for VAR to reverse an onfield decision, they need to establish evidence of a clear and obvious error supposedly. Watching that replay, while he got to the ball with the foot, the thigh appeared to have clipped him and brought him down. And the decision is to ignore that contact and only look at the foot contacting the ball. Ironically time and time again I have made the argument that getting to the ball first is important, only to be told that it doesn't matter. Now all of a sudden after years and years of arguing that its not about getting to the ball first, now decisions are being reversed based on this concept.

Now I've always stressed the importance of getting to the ball first as an important component to determining if a tackle was a foul via slow motion VAR review. But as others have argued, there are other considerations, so it's not the only part of the decision.

In this case though, we have the referee having tunnel vision at the monitor, ignoring the thigh contact, which brought him down, only focusing on the foot to the ball, and concluding not only was it not a penalty but it was a dive and the player who was brought down was booked. In reality it appeared that he was actually brought down by the thigh contact.

I would also point out that the video feed was glitchy with the slow motion pausing before and after the thigh contact was made, which makes it especially hard to see it in the review. We have a World Cup spot being determined by this situation, a situation that is not as clear as one would think.

You're lauding this as an example of VAR preventing an injustice. I'm not so sure. We know how often the referee reverses his decision when brought to the monitor. As is often the case in these kind of situations, dive paranoia is in play here and the referee has been led, or misled into reversing his onfield decision by omiting a key part of what would go into the decision.

If you do think that this prevented an injustice, then I never want to hear about how getting to the ball first isn't important because that would surely be the justification for reversing such a decision on that argument. But what about the thigh contact? I have seen far too often VAR concluding that a player was diving when the problem is they're just not looking close enough and understanding that even a little bit of contact could bring a player down. I see this as farcical for a World Cup spot to be determined by such a decision in such a way with what appears to be a product of dive paranoia and only focusing on the ball and not the upper leg contact.

Time and time again VAR fails to make the correct decision because it only focuses on what it wants to focus on. The whole of WCQ has been chock full of contentious and controversial VAR decisions. To the point that we can say that the WC field would look completely different if VAR wasn't in play and hasn't been deciding who advances and who doesn't. This is the first WC Qualifying in which VAR has been mandated for all matches. In the last 2 WCs that had VAR, VAR wasn't mandated for the qualifiers and often wasn't used. So this is the first WC qualifiers that we are seeing VAR decisions like this actually choose who goes to the WC or not. It's pretty insane that WC spots are being determined by crazy VAR decisions like this if you ask me.

 

[BlueHammer85]

In order for VAR to reverse an onfield decision, they need to establish evidence of a clear and obvious error supposedly. Watching that replay, while he got to the ball with the foot, the thigh appeared to have clipped him and brought him down. And the decision is to ignore that contact and only look at the foot contacting the ball. Ironically time and time again I have made the argument that getting to the ball first is important, only to be told that it doesn't matter. Now all of a sudden after years and years of arguing that its not about getting to the ball first, now decisions are being reversed based on this concept.

Now I've always stressed the importance of getting to the ball first as an important component to determining if a tackle was a foul via slow motion VAR review. But as others have argued, there are other considerations, so it's not the only part of the decision.

In this case though, we have the referee having tunnel vision at the monitor, ignoring the thigh contact, which brought him down, only focusing on the foot to the ball, and concluding not only was it not a penalty but it was a dive and the player who was brought down was booked. In reality it appeared that he was actually brought down by the thigh contact.

I would also point out that the video feed was glitchy with the slow motion pausing before and after the thigh contact was made, which makes it especially hard to see it in the review. We have a World Cup spot being determined by this situation, a situation that is not as clear as one would think.

You're lauding this as an example of VAR preventing an injustice. I'm not so sure. We know how often the referee reverses his decision when brought to the monitor. As is often the case in these kind of situations, dive paranoia is in play here and the referee has been led, or misled into reversing his onfield decision by omiting a key part of what would go into the decision.

If you do think that this prevented an injustice, then I never want to hear about how getting to the ball first isn't important because that would surely be the justification for reversing such a decision on that argument. But what about the thigh contact? I have seen far too often VAR concluding that a player was diving when the problem is they're just not looking close enough and understanding that even a little bit of contact could bring a player down. I see this as farcical for a World Cup spot to be determined by such a decision in such a way with what appears to be a product of dive paranoia and only focusing on the ball and not the upper leg contact.

Time and time again VAR fails to make the correct decision because it only focuses on what it wants to focus on. The whole of WCQ has been chock full of contentious and controversial VAR decisions. To the point that we can say that the WC field would look completely different if VAR hasn't been deciding who advances and who doesn't. This is the first WC Qualifying in which VAR has been mandated for all matches. In the last 2 WCs that had VAR, VAR wasn't mandated for the qualifiers and often wasn't used. So this is the first WC qualifiers that we are seeing VAR decisions like this actually choose who goes to the WC or not. It's pretty insane that WC spots are being determined by crazy VAR decisions like this if you ask me.

It isn't a penalty.