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Rules VAR

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Has VAR Ruined Football?

  • Total voters
    139
VAR needs to go. It has slowed the game too much, and sucked much of the spontaneous joy out of a goal being scored.

But even more because it's still fallible. Phone-in shows like 6-0-6 still consist mostly of arguments over whether VAR got it wrong, rather than the referee in the old days. Even the argument that it could prevent a team perhaps being wrongly relegated might not apply now that Spammers are going to contact the referees body about yesterday.
 
Habanero said:
VAR needs to go. It has slowed the game too much, and sucked much of the spontaneous joy out of a goal being scored.

But even more because it's still fallible. Phone-in shows like 6-0-6 still consist mostly of arguments over whether VAR got it wrong, rather than the referee in the old days. Even the argument that it could prevent a team perhaps being wrongly relegated might not apply now that Spammers are going to contact the referees body about yesterday.
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It isn't a VAR problem - it is the same issue that has always existed.

VAR should have removed the suspicion of corruption by allowing mistakes than were just 'missed' by the ref (e.g. pedro mendes, among others) and clear up any idea that teams were given favourable treatment.

However, it is clear from VAR that they are misusing the technology to spread the "mistakes" (bias) across multiple people.
"The referee didn't see it"
"Wasn't clear and obvious"
"Was clear and obvious"
"The VAR made a mistake"

The problem is that there is no consistency and still huge gaps allowing for referees to heavily influence the game based on choice, rather than rules
 
On MOTD last night, some ex-referee bloke had a go at justifying the officials' decision to disallow the WH goal, as follows...

Although there were multiple fouls taking place in the box at that moment, the impeding of Raya was the most pertinent, as he would have got to the actual ball had he not been impeded. That's why (according to the ex-ref) the officials chose to act on that particular foul ...and not the others being committed by Woolwich players.

At the time I thought, "Yeah, okay", but thinking about it, if Trossard hadn't been manhandling Pablo at that moment, maybe PABLO would have got to the ball in front of Raya (and also not had his hand across Raya's neck). So the decision to disallow the goal was actually based on conjecture and opinion - opinion that favoured Woolwich. Well, there's a surprise!

More bias & corruption, actually.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vx4_n4eL-o
 

IT WAS A FOUL​

I have been saying for two years that much of what Woolwich have been doing at corners and set pieces has been illegal.

Blocking, baulking, grappling. While the football intelligentsia has lauded the work of Woolwich's set piece coach Nicolas Jover and credited him for reinventing the game, it seemed clear that much of what I was watching was stretching the boundaries of fair play to so far that they were broken.

The longer all that went on and the more it was left unchecked by on-field and VAR officials, the more we were heading down the road to where we ended up at West Ham on Sunday. The more likely it was that Woolwich were going to get the benefit of a big one in their own penalty area and the whole football world would explode with rage and a sense of injustice.

And all that's fair enough. Woolwich have pushed refs to the edge at one end of the field and have now successfully cried foul at the other. It feels wrong.

But the truth is that the challenge by West Ham striker Pablo on Woolwich goalkeeper David Raya was illegal. It was a foul.

Just because the officials have failed to spot so many Woolwich infringements at corners over the course of the season, it doesn't mean they should have ignored this one committed against them.

Just because they got it wrong so many times before, it doesn't mean they didn't get this one right. It was a foul.

But we are only at this juncture because the Premier League and its referees have ignored the curse of penalty area wrestling for so long. It should have been dealt with months ago. Fouls and yellow cards were what we needed.

But on we went. On Woolwich went while the rest of the league tried to mimic and catch up.

Woolwich's league season began with a victory earned at Manchester United on day one while the home team cried foul from a corner. Now, nine months on, its decisive moment has arrived with their own goalkeeper lying on the ground in a heap.

Football should have seen this coming. It stood by and watched for too long.


From Daily Mail
 
CJJ said:
It isn't a VAR problem - it is the same issue that has always existed.

VAR should have removed the suspicion of corruption by allowing mistakes than were just 'missed' by the ref (e.g. pedro mendes, among others) and clear up any idea that teams were given favourable treatment.

However, it is clear from VAR that they are misusing the technology to spread the "mistakes" (bias) across multiple people.
"The referee didn't see it"
"Wasn't clear and obvious"
"Was clear and obvious"
"The VAR made a mistake"

The problem is that there is no consistency and still huge gaps allowing for referees to heavily influence the game based on choice, rather than rules
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I partly agree with this. But i dont think VAR isnt a problem. And in my opinion it has drastically made the game worse.

One of the biggest problems with the introduction of VAR has been how they started changing and adjusting the rules. All in an attempt to make the rules more binary, so it would be a better fit for the new technology. As a result, nobody knows what is a foul and what is'nt anymore. And with the possibility of reviewing an incident for 5 minutes in slow motion you can find a foul in almost every incident.
 
I've invented a new, foolproof system that will completely replace VAR.

It's called ETR, which is short for Electrocute The Referee. It's quick and effective and, over time, will lead to the eradication of all onfield mistakes.

Every time the referee makes a wrong call, they get electrocuted. Simple. There are no flaws in this idea - so don't bother trying to find any, because you'd be wasting your life away.

image.png

A Swedish referee trialling the new system
 
I think the incident yesterday with Celtic pretty much shows that VAR is directly favouring whatever league's "preferred" team is to win.

Anyone with eyes could see there was no way for the guy's open hand to generate that much force on the ball to knock it out of play for a throw in, the lightning fast check was also a dead giveaway.

Not just that, but stating the obvious again, the odds of it genuinely happening by chance simply don't support the amount of "fortuitous" decisions that the Arse have been the beneficiaries of this season, VAR or otherwise, not just the incident against West Ham either, their constant fouling in the box for set pieces and their constant simulation just to name a couple.

It's nothing new, look at the amount Ferguson's Man Utd used to get away with back in that era, you basically needed one of their players to cut one of the opposition's legs off with a chainsaw to get a decision at Old Trafford especially.

I also wasn't around for it, but I get the suspicion Liverpool used to get away with a similar amount in their glory days.
 
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Is it possible that they would like to stretch game time as they do in american sports so that they can have more room for adverts during match interruptions?
 
The diabolical penalty decision at Motherwell last night should be the final nail in the VAR coffin. If we need to have VAR then it should only be for goal line technology and ,at a push, semi automated offsides. Everything else should be the sole responsibility of the on field referee and his assistants.
IMO VAR is a cancer which is slowly but surely killing the beautiful game. It needs to go.
 
Spurs_1987 said:
I think the incident yesterday with Celtic pretty much shows that VAR is directly favouring whatever league's "preferred" team is to win.

Anyone with eyes could see there was no way for the guy's open hand to generate that much force on the ball to knock it out of play for a throw in, the lightning fast check was also a dead giveaway.

Not just that, but stating the obvious again, the odds of it genuinely happening by chance simply don't support the amount of "fortuitous" decisions that the Arse have been the beneficiaries of this season, VAR or otherwise, not just the incident against West Ham either, their constant fouling in the box for set pieces and their constant simulation just to name a couple.

It's nothing new, look at the amount Ferguson's Man Utd used to get away with back in that era, you basically needed one of their players to cut off one of the opposition's legs off with a chainsaw to get a decision at Old Trafford especially.

I also wasn't around for it, but I get the suspicion Liverpool used to get away with a similar amount in their glory days.
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I can testify to that. Remember seeing Waddle upended by Hansen then later Lawrenson in the area, nothing given.
Recent Gary Neville soccer box showed Michael Owen scoring v Chelsea at Anfield. As I watched it I just thought….thats offside. Ran it back and stopped it. Owens full body completely ahead of the last defender. Commentator made no mention at all. That’s one of the few good things about VAR ….there should be no bias in a machine. Especially with offside.
 
We've always accepted football for what it is, warts 'n all, because at its heart, the game is basically 2 x 45 minute chunks of action, punctuated by moments of extreme emotion.

VAR has gone straight to the heart of the essence of football, stabbed it and twisted the knife. VAR has killed football. It has destroyed the action and it has removed the moments of extreme emotion.

Jack the Ripper would have loved VAR.
 
Perryman said:
I can testify to that. Remember seeing Waddle upended by Hansen then later Lawrenson in the area, nothing given.
Recent Gary Neville soccer box showed Michael Owen scoring v Chelsea at Anfield. As I watched it I just thought….thats offside. Ran it back and stopped it. Owens full body completely ahead of the last defender. Commentator made no mention at all. That’s one of the few good things about VAR ….there should be no bias in a machine. Especially with offside.
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I suppose you could go further back with Don Revie's Leeds, from what I've read they got away with so damn much, that even for the 60s/70s their style was considered overly violent.

Again I wasn't around, but I do get the feeling there was more than a few rival fans saying "well that's Karma" when they got obviously shafted in the European Cup final against Bayern.
 
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