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Rules VAR

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Has VAR Ruined Football?


  • Total voters
    139
In other words, was the game, people's enjoyment of, and its popularity, suffering because of officiating.

Yes.

Essentially no it wasn't.

At the point that VAR was finally brought in; masses were hankering for it cos they'd had enough.

the upside of no VAR was huge. And we've lost that.

The "We've lost the spontaneity... We can't celebrate goals" is massively overstated (mostly by people that never wanted VAR and want to see it fail).

Games have always had stoppages.
We've always had disallowed goals.
 
Ok, but note that I didn't define non-problem as "poor officiating".

The non-problem was the overall situation. In other words, was the game, people's enjoyment of, and its popularity, suffering because of officiating. Essentially no it wasn't. Without VAR the game's rise in popularity was phenomenal. And although yes, there were bad decisions (and still are), the upside of no VAR was huge. And we've lost that.
It really was.
But VAR has just changed what is being ruined about the game.
 
Yes.



At the point that VAR was finally brought in; masses were hankering for it cos they'd had enough.



The "We've lost the spontaneity... We can't celebrate goals" is massively overstated (mostly by people that never wanted VAR and want to see it fail).

Games have always had stoppages.
We've always had disallowed goals.
Sorry to disagree with you Airfixx, but I've been watch lower league games lately and the lack of VAR is a breath of fresh air. Football as it should be.
 
Sorry to disagree with you Airfixx, but I've been watch lower league games lately and the lack of VAR is a breath of fresh air. Football as it should be.
Exactly

Just to be clear on my point ... it's not that there weren't poor decisions. There were. And it's possible there are fewer poor decisions now (I'd hope so ffs). But the price to pay for that is far too high.

Football became the world's no.1 sport without VAR.
 
Yes.



At the point that VAR was finally brought in; masses were hankering for it cos they'd had enough.



The "We've lost the spontaneity... We can't celebrate goals" is massively overstated (mostly by people that never wanted VAR and want to see it fail).

Games have always had stoppages.
We've always had disallowed goals.
Yes, but there is a huge difference between the very occaisional disallowed goal and being unable to spontaneously celebrate a goal, because so many are disallowed.

The rest of your argument is circular. I mean yes, those people who don't like what VAR has taken from the game wanted it to fail.
 
Never seen a goal not celebrated yet.
You've never stood next to me then. I USED TO go mental with joy, now I go mental with worry that it might be chalked off. Also, the guy I go with ( a season ticket holder since before the Woolly Mammoths died out), was saying to me only last weekend that he just can't celebrate spontaneously any more. So that's 2 of us. By the time you're cleared to celebrate, the emotion has dissipated somewhat, to put it mildly.
 
It's a very mixed bag. I wonder if modern television has not started all of this. When you could see more on the broadcast you could see more of how often a referee gets it wrong, so then there's a clamoring to use technology to get it right. Then you've got people being declared offside by an eyelash and nobody wants that, it's all too precise. Then it needs to be clear and obvious but those are subjective, and we see an hesitance to overturn the match referee even when it would make sense. And the delays, the letting the air out of many celebrations...

It's just shuffled the problems and not fixed them.
 
Going on our matches only, I have much more faith in Foreign refs/VAR in European matches than in PL. I am sure someone will come up with examples where that is not true but that is my feeling. Why is that? It could be that foreign officials are less biased against us or simply they have a better interpretation of what to do. Cannot recall long waits for decisions.
 
You've never stood next to me then. I USED TO go mental with joy, now I go mental with worry that it might be chalked off. Also, the guy I go with ( a season ticket holder since before the Woolly Mammoths died out), was saying to me only last weekend that he just can't celebrate spontaneously any more. So that's 2 of us. By the time you're cleared to celebrate, the emotion has dissipated somewhat, to put it mildly.

An inability to “ celebrate spontaneously “ is often an age-related phenomenon caused by a perfectly natural aging process affecting the Prostate gland ( and other related structures and physiological processes) .

In short: It might be nothing to do with VAR tbf .
 
An inability to “ celebrate spontaneously “ is often an age-related phenomenon caused by a perfectly natural aging process affecting the Prostate gland ( and other related structures and physiological processes) .

In short: It might be nothing to do with VAR tbf .
Oh shut up, you idiot. Spoiling yet another discussion by trying to be clever/funny. You're neither.
 
Oh shut up, you idiot. Spoiling yet another discussion by trying to be clever/funny. You're neither.

Nice edit ; at least you sat back , thought , considered, reflected and came up with some new words to embellish your original spontaneous ( though rather raw ) utterance.

The original draft was somewhat “ stark “ , albeit in your “ usual style “ ; I think you’d have to agree .

( F-ing He’ll ; I’m beginning to sound like your editor at Faber and Faber , who’d have predicted that ) .

Love ya little man .
 
Going on our matches only, I have much more faith in Foreign refs/VAR in European matches than in PL. I am sure someone will come up with examples where that is not true but that is my feeling. Why is that? It could be that foreign officials are less biased against us or simply they have a better interpretation of what to do. Cannot recall long waits for decisions.
Perhaps we can outsource VAR decisions to AI soon, and remove the humans who seem to hate us from the decision making process
 
Perhaps we can outsource VAR decisions to AI soon, and remove the humans who seem to hate us from the decision making process

In all seriousness; VAR is a hostage to fortune as long as the current off/side laws apply .

I agree with Arsene Wenger ; it should come down to “ clear daylight “ between attacker and defender . All this nonsense about knees , wrists and half a finger ; simply plays into Stockley Park’s hands ; and give wannabe Obersturmbannführers far to much say
( albeit whilst paying them a shed -load of money) .

Clear daylight and a simplified machine operated system for delivering real-time decisions ; and our troubles would be over .

A simple binary decision; made ( at the speed of light ) by a machine before the goal is even scored .

And the bods at Stockley Park could go f\ck themselves.

How mad would that be .
 
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In all seriousness; VAR is a hostage to fortune as long as the current off/side laws apply .

I agree with Arsene Wenger ; it should come down to “ clear daylight “ between attacker and defender . All this nonsense about knees , wrists and half a finger ; simply plays into Stockley Park’s hands ; and give wannabe Obersturmbannführers far to much say
( albeit whilst paying them a shed -load of money) .

Clear daylight and a simplified machine operated system for delivering real-time decisions ; and our troubles would be over .

A simple binary decision; made ( at the speed of light ) by a machine before the goal is even scored .

And the bods at Stockley Park could go f\ck themselves.

How mad would that be .


Wee , your views . Perchance .
I think he's right about that. I don't know what the standard should be but nobody wants to see them engaged in a teleconference about where a shoulder and arm ends or begin. Nobody wants players to be ruled offside by their nose or one pixel when cameras are zoomed in like microscopes.

Then they miss things or judge them on technicalities like the headbutt from the arse player... he attempted to act violently but they judge that he didn't succeed because their skulls were already pressed together so it's not violent conduct. Same as if he'd thrown a punch but missed - that's not violent conduct?
 
I think he's right about that. I don't know what the standard should be but nobody wants to see them engaged in a teleconference about where a shoulder and arm ends or begin. Nobody wants players to be ruled offside by their nose or one pixel when cameras are zoomed in like microscopes.

Then they miss things or judge them on technicalities like the headbutt from the arse player... he attempted to act violently but they judge that he didn't succeed because their skulls were already pressed together so it's not violent conduct. Same as if he'd thrown a punch but missed - that's not violent conduct?

Like I alluded to ; the laws of the game weren’t drawn up with any reference to VAR.

I can see the point of it ; but where it is applied the laws should be adjusted to take its use into account . ( If that makes sense) .

Ie we‘ve got machine technology judging situations that are intended to be judged by humans ; but in turn those machine-judged situations are being arbitrated by , err humans at Stockley Park ; it just seems imperfect to me .

PS Theyve done away with line-judges at Grand Slam Tennis tournaments and now rely on machines ; but the issue of whether a ball lands in or out depends on , in effect , clear daylight; it’s a binary decision. ( Again , if you see what I mean ) .
 
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Like I alluded to ; the laws of the game weren’t drawn up without any reference to VAR .

I can see the point of it ; but where it is applied the laws should be adjusted to take its use into account . ( If that makes sense) .

Ie we‘ve got machine technology judging situations that are intended to be judged by humans ; but in turn those machine-judged situations are being arbitrated by , err humans at Stockley Park ; it just seems imperfect to me .

PS Theyve done away with line-judges at Grand Slam Tennis tournaments and now rely on machines ; but the issue of whether a ball lands in or out depends on , in effect , clear daylight; it’s a binary decision. ( Again , if you see what I mean ) .
That tennis example brings up one place where video technology really has helped, and that's in all the 'did the ball cross the line' situations. How many of those went down controversially in days gone by. That's probably the most important decision that can be automated, has a goal been scored or not. So it's not all been bad.

I think the use of video for subjective decisions can be helpful, and it is also helpful in determining whether a player is doing simulation.

But these cases where three heads are put together and they can't determine if a tug of hair is violent or if a head butt that'd have broken a nose if it succeeded as intended is violent... just farcical.

Obviously the last one has been stuck in my craw, that the player gets off the hook because he executed a violent action in an inept fashion. Since he failed to connect with the blow or to create clear daylight before smashing someone in the face it's not judged to be "violent conduct"?
 
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