VAR thread 2022/23

[Stephen230]

Daylight wasn't in the laws of the game, but in effect was how offsides was determined before VAR due to offsides being called in real-time. Before VAR, if there wasn't daylight seen, generally linesmen would keep their flags down and deem players to be onside that were "about level". So while daylight wasn't in the laws per se, the reason why pundits use that terminology is because they are describing pragmatically what was generally required for offsides to be flagged before VAR which is no longer the case. Now you can be offsides by a toenail or a forehead, by much smaller margins. So in effect, the daylight argument while not in the laws generally is an accurate way to describe what was needed for offsides to be called before VAR.

Yes but you were talking about there been no ‘daylight’ in the incident last night as if that makes it an error now, with VAR.

 

[Sir peace frog]

It feels like the sport has been hijacked. What we're seeing in football with VAR is a bad attempt to reinvent the wheel. They've sent football down an unsustainable path. Football was a very simple sport at its core, but very sophisticated in the way it was played, managed and covered by the press. The complex strategies involved, the uninhibited ability to play with any formation, the clash of styles, and the way it all worked and came together was that it was officiated in real-time through a tried and true method. Everything about it, how linesman flag offsides, only works in real-time with instinctive decisions. The willingness to accept VAR on any level shows a complete lack of understanding of how football works and it's insulting to anyone associated with the sport.

What this has done is dumbed down the entire sport. The knowledgable fan knows this whole ordeal is wrong. The experts on the tele or the match commentators used to call a match were able to engage in the flow of the match and not be taken out of that dream-like state that used to be watching a match. It's like listening to music, to your favorite song, and right in the middle of your favorite song, the record scratches, the music stops, and you have to wait 3 minutes for the music to re-start. And by then you've been taken out of the song. It's not the same experience listening to the last minute of a song if you aren't able to listen to it start to finish without any interruptions.

Imagine not only having your song re-started after a long wait but the song is picked up at a different time in the song. Or lets say you're listening to an album. In the middle of a song, the record skips and when it starts playing again it's in the middle of another song on the album. That's what VAR is like. It's like your whole sense of time and space is hijacked. There's no continuous start to finish any more. At any time the match can be turned on its head and stopped from the direction it was going in only to be redirected into new and random directions based on some bloke in an ivory tower having a direct line to the referee. Football is so fundamentally broken with VAR it's not even funny. The sport needs to made whole again. Otherwise it's going to continue to drive us completely mad and that's not OK.

And we can't compare football to others sports. Football is unique in many ways and that's why we love it. I'm OK with TMO in Rugby because Rugby is a far more complicated sport with natural stoppages. And systemically TMO seems to work relatively well given the constraints, given how it was designed. Not that TMO is perfect, but it is far less disruptive to watching a Rugby match. Not only is VAR an unwelcome addition to football, but it's designed so poorly. I mean just think about how it takes the opportunity to focus on some of the most subjective parts of the game, while ignoring others. Like VAR for example has no ability to even look at whether a corner kick should have been awarded instead of a goal kick. Which is what often leads to goals, that are then reviewed. There's situations where a corner kick given incorrectly, then a goal is scored off a corner kick, then the goal is reviewed and goes to VAR, a subjective foul is given, a goal might be taken away, that shouldn't have happened to begin with because a corner kick was given incorrectly, there's no consideration or even any discussion about whether the corner kick was given correctly, and the goal or non-goal should never have even happened because it was put out by the other team.

It's so utterly pointless to look at only select decisions and obsessing over those while ignoring other decisions which in many cases are less subjective and easier to make decisions on via camera angles. What I'm getting at is it's one thing to do some kind of a system of reviewing wrong decisions, but not only is VAR so incredibly disruptive to the flow and enjoyment of the game, but it's also so frustratingly poorly designed in how it is implemented. And the other thing is just how they've seen the bad results of VAR and rather than improving the system itself, they've gone to the laws of the game to start tweaking those as if it's the laws that are the problem. It's completely mental and what I'm trying to point out is that all this has been created and maintained by the FIFA President. He's the one who has created all of this, and everyone has just taken their marching orders from him, and from his right hand man Colina. What gets me about Colina is he spent a long and successful career as a referee, calling matches in real-time, kmowing the art of that. How he can be on board with this travesty is beyond comprehension. He should know about the art of refereeing and what it takes to be that. I'm afraid Mr. Colina has been completely brainwashed by Infantino about this system, the idea that referees need to be helped.

Referees need to be allowed to do their job properly. I'm sorry for going on and on about this, but it is very upsetting to see what has happened to football with this VAR. There must be some way that we can put this system to an end. It's devastating football and until VAR gets the boot, we will continue to be punished with a sub-par version of football that is practically unwatchable. It's insulting what they've done to the sport, before VAR, football had reached a level of sophistication in terms of how knowledgable fans were about it and how the sport was covered. All of that has been completely broken and dumbed down to a point to where it's hardly recognizable. It's a tragedy. Football is meant to be an immersive outlet for us to escape from the rigors of life. They've turned this once glorious sport upside down with this failed experiment known as VAR and I will never stand for it. Fans have the power whether they realize it or not to do something. Maybe we need to start boycotting matches or taking drastic action. But one way or another, VAR must be stopped. It is spreading like the plague, like a wildfire, now it's into Scottish Football. It cannot be allowed to continue.

Mate, it's exactly how I feel, your album reference is so true, 100% spot on post, we don't need var football gave us everything we needed, and it has done for over 100 years of course there were tweaks which imo improved the game (gk allowed to pick a back pass up) var can't be implemented in grassroots football and if that is the case var shouldn't be allowed at every level

 

[Sir peace frog]

I guess reading this thread would give the authorities reason to not broadcast what the officials say as any decision that goes against their team or for a rival’s team and the LOTG are trotted out and forensically examined concluding in corruption and bias every time.

Until fans are able to calmly and rationally debate decisions, we will always have threads like this on every club’s forums, VAR or no VAR.

who the fuck watches their team calmly and rationally , i never wanted var,they are taking the natural joy/despair out of the game , and nothing good will come out of the game where fans are robbed of that emotion .

we see on here all the time people don't celebrate goals , imagine for a split second that aguero goal an instant outpouring of emotion ,i was on my knees crying, i wouldn't of been if i had to wonder was there a foul 3 passes before the ball hit the net, and if you can't feel that then you're sterile.

 

[DTKOAG]

All over the BBC live football page, all over Talksport & 5 Live..
But when we were cheated out of our goal against Spuds all brushed under the carpet after 20 minutes.

 

[Saddleworth2]

What struck me last night was the smirk on the referees face as he was 'explaining' the decision to the Spuds players. He was having a whale of a time. I have to say it smelt bad.

 

[ancoats]

The technology is not good enough and using video from angles that are not inline are stuff of David Copperfield the (illusionist), you can make anything look different because of line of sight,

VAR was sold to football on clear and obvious error by the officials and can change a wrong into a right
BUT we are turning the rights into mistakes, even worst it's by an official watching a replay that nobody on earth can say 1000% the technology is right, or the video replay is inline, or the ball leaving the foot,

so many wrongs in VAR that what is the point of using it ? Just let's go back to the match officials, even if it means using more match officials like 2 referees and 4 linesmen, 2 4th officials, just stop using Video and slow motion to view offside and handball or anything you see live with your own eyes

 

[Stephen230]

The fact that a VAR check was ordered and a penalty given after the final whistle floors me. This is a complete mockery of this sport. We hear so much about how VAR is run so much better in other parts of Europe than in the Premier League. I haven't seen anything this horrendous in the Premier League and that's saying a lot.

Are you saying that if the VAR spots a clear penalty offence in the game but the referee blows up before he has had time to tell him, then he should just pretend it didn’t happen?

 

[BlueHammer85]

Like once in a blue moon!! You're acting like this was a common occurrence. It wasn't.

Rarely was there penalties given for zero contact. What you're describing is when a player embellishes slight contact and falls over trying to get a penalty.

Contact in the box and attackers sometimes over acting and going down trying to draw a penalty was an art form. Honestly I miss all that. It was passion inducing.

There are ways in which this type of conduct could have been dealt with. Post-match suspensions or fines for players flopping. If VAR was limited to catching attackers over acting and going down in the box without any contact whatsoever, we wouldn't have any of the problems we have presently with VAR.

Which was an normal part of post-match coverage. VAR hasn't stopped the debate over contentious decisions. It has only exacerbated it and increased the level of frustration due to the added focus and obsession over that.

All fair counter points

 

[BlueHammer85]

What struck me last night was the smirk on the referees face as he was 'explaining' the decision to the Spuds players. He was having a whale of a time. I have to say it smelt bad.

the ref knew it was totally out of his hands and he was the one getting lambasted

Does corruption always have to come into play? why would the 'powers' want to deny Spurs a winner ?

 

[andyhinch]

the ref knew it was totally out of his hands and he was the one getting lambasted

Does corruption always have to come into play? why would the 'powers' want to deny Spurs a winner ?

Well I wanted to so why shouldn’t they ;-)