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  2. Yup, giving a player offside becuase his arm is beyond the defender is technically correct, but a laughable decision.
    VAR may have resolved some contentious decisions, but introduced more daft decisions and slowed the game down.
    “Give us a game littered with mistakes – we can deal with it”

    • “because his arm is beyond the defender”*
      That’s not VAR though, is it? That’s yer actual rule that’s the issue.
      Ironically, in the context of this weekend, the VAR review has been very successful in correcting offside mistakes.
      (*and it won’t be an arm as you’re not allowed to score with those..)

  3. This is exactly what they wanted and this is exactly what they got!
    The clever money was always non-league or popping down the O’s, now it’s an open-and-shut case.

    Let’s hope the farce is confined for as long as possible to Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham et al, who, frankly, deserve it.

    • The big teams nearly always get the decisions and it has always been that way because they are the ones that earn the money for the greed league.
      Think back not that long ago to ‘Fergie time’ when referees often added extra minutes beyond those actually accrued to allow Man U to get a winner or an equaliser. Or shortened extra time to stop the opposing team from getting back into the game.
      How many penalties do you see against Man U at Old Trafford? Not many.

      • TBF, so poor have Man U become these last few years that recent visitors to the increasingly dilapidated Theatre of Dreams no longer need to rely on added time or getting penalties to come away with a win

      • Another stupid comment from your addled brain @SteveT!

        No more than 7,000 Covid deaths in the UK? For example.

        Extra time/shortened time? Give examples and dates/games this happened. When you find them check the reasons for added time. Shortened time, that’s a new one!? Another product of your stupidity? Or your scewed view on life? Let’s see, all this from a man who APPLAUDED the Birmingham City hooligan who ran on the pitch and assaulted Jack Grealish.

        Your lunatic thoughts get worse every second.

        @Jaygee, increasingly dilapidated stadium? 😂💥🤣💥😂🤣💥😂
        The bloody place is falling down! While those Yankee tawts screw a ONCE great club for every penny they can get.

  6. It’s not going away, can certainly be improved though

    Rugby tends to get it right, but it can be a very elongated process, but at least the audio is always available for all to hear what the discussion is. They have speeded things up by having possible red cards reviewed independently while player is in sin bin.

    Football has never shown any inclination to learn from any other sports though.

    I think it could be used more sparingly, change the offside law to make it simpler and possibly judge it automatically.

    The fact you can’t really celebrate a goal until a review is unfortunate, but that applies to other sports too, the afore mentioned rugby but also cricket reviewing catches, run outs, lbw decisions etc

    • As the Twitter lady above says the problem is sports like rugby have by their very nature complicated rules and VAR actually works. Football is simple and VAR robs it of its simplicity. No more tinkering, throw the fu**er out ( the Championship in England was offered full VAR this season and, sensibly, refused).

      • Rugby has more natural breaks. It’s nowhere near perfect but the fact one hears the TMO go through his analysis in concert with the ref helps, however it takes way too long. A large screen in the ground also is useful so all fans (and the ref) can see replays. I believe it is thought to be too provocative to use that in football because certain supporters may not be as well behaved as their rugby counterparts if they disagree with a decision and see multiple replays

      • Can I nuance this a little with the benefit of refereeing rugby, microphones radios etc, and having read the VAR transcript.

        In rugby, there are key phrases and agreed vocabulary to minimize the room for misunderstanding.

        The VAR transcript reads like two fellas chatting as they go along. I don’t understand why they don;t have set phrases “I have no-goal as I have Diaz off side. Please check.”
        Absolute clarity and no ambiguity about the question or the premise of the question.

        This isn’t about ebbs and flows and games, this is simply shit protocols.

  7. The principle of VAR is fine. The implementation is poor and the constant tinkering is really unhelpful. Also part of the problem is the media’s absolute commitment to looking for mistakes in refereeing decisions and then filling up half time and post match analysis with them. They are a significant part of the problem.

    The result of VAR to date is a significant decrease in errors. Where I do completely agree with the article is that there will always be human error whether you use VAR or not.

    Sort out offside (I’d go with where the feet are), play the audio of the decision so there is less mystery and allow teams to have three VAR challenges each in a game and then leave it alone.

    • Good points, and the three challenges per game would focus minds.

      Is this, though, not something AI is perfectly suited for? AI would in most cases be able to assess far quicker than humans whether there has been a physical infringement, and were there a grey area to consider (such as whether a player is technically offside but not influencing the run of play) it could default to a human.

  8. Speaking as someone who rarely watches football (except for the big comps, when I devour the games with enthusiasm) I have to ask, why doesn’t soccer use the tracker devices that world cup rugby players have in their shirts?
    If players each carried one of these, the grounds could be equipped with kit to determine exactly – to within a couple of centimetres – where each player was on the pitch at any point in time. Off-side decisions could be near-instantaneous, triggered by an official, and pretty much beyond disputation.

    • Per SR above, they already wear trackers to assess their movements, but they’re nowhere near accurate/granular enough to guarantee accurate offside calls.

      I’m not a ref, but it’s my understanding that any part of the body, bar hands and arms, can be offside. The decisions can be a matter of millimeters, so you’d need to players to essentially wear full body suits.

      FIFA have trialed a semi-automated offside system which uses 12 cameras, tracking positional data 50 times per second, 3D modelling and sensors in the ball, to try to improve offside decision making. The Premier League clubs voted against introducing it.

      Ultimately, you can have all the technology you want. So long as human beings are in the mix they’ll find a way to cock things up like they did on Saturday night.

      • A part of the body which can legally play the ball, is in play for offside. Hence the ridiculous “T shirt length” debate a couple of seasons ago.

        As far as trackers go you are correct. Nowhere near accurate enough when VAR replays start getting into HD camera frame-rate discussions.

        It’s bonkers. Leedsboy has it right: it’s the implementation where it falls down. I think it’s not fit for offside decisions.

  10. VAR can get in the bin.

    This endless quest to play football in lab-perfect conditions is tedious and against the spirit of the game.

    Football, as a sport, is all about emotional release. VAR runs directly counter to that; it encourages the crowd to check themselves before feeling anything, in promise of perfect decision making. And then it manifestly fails to deliver perfect decision making.

    We talk more about refereeing decisions now than ever before. We’d be far better off simply accepting that the sport is and should be chaotic, moaning for half an hour after the game and then getting on with it instead of this endless analysis of whether the team of inadequates in the bus outside the stadium has drawn its lines in the correct place.

    Football has no lessons to learn on this front from rugby, or any other sport, because football comes from a fundamentally different place – of all the sports it provokes the deepest passions, for good and ill – and it is therefore the least appropriate venue for the bureaucratic impulse to micro-manage every aspect until every last vestibule of joy or spontaneity has been extracted.

    The notion that decision making can ever be perfect, or that it would even be desirable for it to be so, is an enormous and monumentally distracting fallacy, and it should be given the heave at the next available opportunity.

    If this level of care and effort were to be put into properly regulating the financial side of the game we might actually get somewhere. As it is, English football will spend the week debating three relatively marginal refereeing decisions while ignoring the fact that we have a “fit and proper persons” test for club ownership that no one has ever failed. That’s the decision making that’s really in need of correction.

    • Gets off sofa (slowly) and applauds. You’ve won the argument!

      Oh hold on, just need to check your second para. Using ‘And’ to start a sentence… this might take some time, we’ll need to see it from another angle.

      Seriously, top notch stuff. Wish I could express myself like what you can

      • Cheers, Lodestone. Having now read the very strong article in the OP I realise I have essentially echoed many of its sentiments.

        Regrettably, I don’t think there’s any danger of VAR being disposed of. The direction of travel is clear; a controlled, sterilized spectacle on the field, a grotesque free for all off it. All in the service of some very dirty money indeed.

        • I’m of the opinion VAR was invented so experts in the studio could debate mistakes for hours whilst gullible punters watch adverts for Sky TV, Sky Cinema and Sky Porn Hub.
          Goal-line technology is all you need and then we can get back to chanting “one nil to the referee, one nil …” like what proper football supporters actually in the ground want to do, instead of staring at a bloody great screen not daring to cheer.

          • VAR suits the pundits perfectly.

            The reality of the modern game at the top level is that it’s essentially a different sport to the one that was being played 20 years ago, and maybe even a decade ago. It’s been massively altered by tactical innovation and data analysis. Games are decided less by moments of individual genius, and more by the success or failure of tactical systems and decisions that are largely invisible to the watching audience, and that the majority of pundits and fans are unequipped to understand.

            In that context, being able to spend half your screen time discussing a bad tackle or whether someone’s big toe is offside is probably extremely welcome.

            Meanwhile, yesterday was the five year anniversary of the ultimate owner of one Premier League club having a man literally murdered and dismembered. Which is the bit that will receive no analysis or reflection at all, but probably should.

            • I remember the days when Andy Gray would draw his lines on the pitch hours after the event. “The linesman flagged offside (as he did against Liverpool) but, look, it’s onside! What a disgrace! Liverpool might now lose the title by one point all because that linesman got it wrong.” ad nauseum…

              (Andy couldn’t cope when they became assistant referees)

              • @Tiggerlion

                I think Andy’s big problem came when they started using the ladeez as officials in men’s matches.

                Even more hilarious is all the Pool fans piling on in the inevitable – and invariably futile – call for some kind of rematch.

                • You see, pre-VAR, offside was constantly incorrect: good goals disallowed and non-existent goals given. There were ructions. Absolutely.

                  My passion is rugby league and, I’d say its fans are just as emotional and committed as any football team’s. The VAR review has become an integral part of the viewing experience. It helps that the officials are well organised and are clear, miked up for the crowd to hear, about what the infield decision is and what the check is for. The fourth official also vocalises his thought processes.

                  VAR in football is here to stay. They must introduce some clarity as to the officials’ thinking.

                  • I’m sure VAR is a perfect fit for rugby.

                    As for fans being as emotional as those in football, I’m afraid I massively disagree. I’m not aware of any Rugby league game which regularly generates the absolute mania on show when, say, Rangers play Celtic, or Boca play River.

                    It’s not a knock to rugby (the emotion generates at least as much negative behaviour as positive), but I think we should be real about the differences between these sports. If you want evidence in data form then just look at the comparative police presence for each.

                    • Not rugby league but you should try being in Cardiff on an international match day. Plenty of passion and emotion, the difference is that we don’t try to beat up supporters of opposition teams, in fact we drink together in pubs before and after and sit next to them in the stadium.

                      I believe rugby league is more like football in regard to the tribal aspect.

                    • I’ve actually been to an international in Cardiff. Great day out. I’ve also been to watch a couple of Superclásicos in La Bombonera. Fucking scary.

                      One of my kids plays rugby. It’s a brilliant sport, with all sorts of advantages over football. One of them is that it appears to send people markedly less mental. I have my own theories as to why, but it’s indisputable from where I’m sat that raw emotional release is at the absolute core of football in a way that’s true of very few other sports, and that makes it a truly horrible fit for VAR.

                    • Try the original derby, Wigan v St.Helens. It may be the match that decides the champions this year.

                      Having followed all three codes, the best atmosphere I’ve experienced was the West Indies playing England at Edgbastion during the “blackwash”. I haven’t had the privilege of witnessing Pakistan v India.

                      Football fans are viciously tribal. It feels to me that violence isn’t far away. I don’t feel that at anything other than a football match. It obviously drives adrenaline but it’s not a good thing.

              • Of course there were mistakes before VAR, at least one major error in every single game! That’s what football should be about, most especially if you are actually at the game and not watching from the informed comfort of your living room, passion and skill, and, yes, crap refereeing decisions. Allowing technology to decide whether an elbow is fractionally offside robs the game of everything, everything

            • Your point about the game changing is the critical factor. It’s changed significantly and I think beyond the point where one man, with two assistants who only cover half the pitch each can be thought even remotely adequate. Until VAR came along, the 4th official was the only officiating change of any real import since the game began, and that helped the game on the field not one jot. Ref’s didn’t even turn pro until 2001.

              Were there alternatives to VAR ? Sure, I think they’ve been overlooked. Another official on pitch, extra officials to deal with the nonsense that goes on at corners, the offside technology you mention elsewhere. Anything really that would have seen officiating standards at least vaguely keep up with the evolution of the standard of play. The “jumpers for goalposts” contingent will oppose any kind of change (I’m not seeing you as one of these people) , but I can’t buy in to errors as a part of the games charm.

              There’s no doubt that VAR has been implemented poorly, and slow to improve. I’ll dig out an article I read a while back which makes the point that one of the biggest errors to date has been to ask other refs to become VAR officials. It’s totally different and needs a different approach.

              • I’d argue with your first para – one ref, two linesmen, goal-line technology. That’s all we need, simples.
                The rest of your argument, unfortunately for me, makes sense (apart obviously for errors, errors are an integral part of football)

              • The thing is that one ref, two assistants and a fourth official are completely adequate for most professional matches that are played in this country and around the world. Below the Premier League we still live in the world where officials have to make decisions based on what they see at the time. Most of the time they get it right; sometimes not, and occasionally they make absolute howlers. Players, managers and fans will have a moan about such decisions and then get on with it, as has been the case since the game was invented. It really isn’t a problem.

  13. He’s a good guy….

    “I’ve got absolutely zero against goalline technology, that’s a no-brainer because that’s quite significant, but it works for our game,” added Postecoglou.

    “I just think our game is unique and I know people say, ‘well, let’s get referees explaining their decisions’. Oh my God. Seriously? Could you imagine sitting there listening to a referee explain every decision on the game.”

    Postecoglou drew a comparison between refereeing in football and how NFL officials communicate, and how long that can take.

    “I’m going to the gridiron on Sunday, I love it, I love American football,” he said. “It’s three and a half hours mate. Do you want to sit through three and a half hours of listening?

    “I just think with VAR at the moment, we think it’s going to eliminate [errors] and the more we use it, I think the worse it’s going to get.

    “It was there for the clear and obvious error. It seems like everything now. Yellow cards, fouls, corners, everything’s getting scrutinised. It’s not our game.

    “We’re not rugby, we don’t have those stoppages. What I always loved about England was the frenetic pace of football.

    “Why are we trying to take that out? Now, I think part of the consequence of last week was that none of us liked it when they were taking so long to make a decision and it sounded like last week they were rushing into a decision.

    “That suggests to me that I don’t think the technology in its current form is suitable to our game.”

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