SebastianBlue
President, International Julian Alvarez Fan Club
- Joined
- 25 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 57,736
Of course there will always be mistakes, whether down to human or technological fault (or both).
The issue is the frequency and highly dubious nature of the “mistakes” happening now, several years in to the use of VAR. And the reluctance of the league and PGMOL to make reasonable changes to improve it (in fact, they have taken several steps to make it worse).
It would be fine if it were one or two questionable decisions a match round; that would just be part and parcel to regulating any endeavour.
But right now we have one or two questionable decisions a match, despite having a system that is meant to address the limitations of a single human arbitrating the game in real-time. Some of the decisions make absolutely no sense in the moment, much less in post mortem. Most are never fully explained and I imagine they won’t be.
The only thing they have done is to put together a carefully edited, highly controlled, narrative crafting show to allow them to legitimise this standard of officiating by only reviewing the less contentious decisions in detail and largely ignoring the glaringly wrong ones that happen over and over again.
The problem isn’t that mistakes are made. The problem is “mistakes” continue to be made in large numbers. And those mistakes have very real consequences to participants of the competition.
Brighton would likely be in 4th right now if not for the clear and obvious mistakes made in at least two of their matches, both against traditionally top six sides rivalling them for European places.
Leeds would likely not be facing relegation if not for numerous suspect officiating displays throughout the season, mostly against the cash cow clubs.
Wolves have famously been livid with PGMOL over high-profile mistakes in their matches that have cost them points.
And we can see very clearly in our matches how despite—and in some cases because of—VAR, we seem to be refereed differently to our opponents, which could at best be interpreted as an attempt to “balance out” our matches.
I have said this so many times that even I am getting sick reading it but I will type it once more:
A few dubious decisions can reasonably be interpreted as mistakes.
5 dubious decisions can reasonably be interpreted as incompetence.
10+ dubious decisions can reasonably be interpreted as corruption, as at a certain point, allowing the “mistakes” to continue is the same as intentionally making them.
