I really hope these changes are implemented in domestic football, next season:
When a substitution is being made, a player will have 10 seconds to leave the field of play. Failure to comply will mean that the ongoing substitute will be held by the 4th official for one minute. In a friendly last night, Iceland made an 84th minute double-substitution. One player beat the clock but the second one didn’t. His sub was held on the sideline and Iceland had to play with 10 men for a minute. During that time, Japan scored what turned out to be the winner.
If a goalkeeper goes down with an injury, players will be told to stay where they are on the field. This prevents the current spate of fake injuries by goalkeepers to allow his teammates to go to the sidelines for a tactical chat from the manager.
There will be timed restarts for throw-ins and goal kicks. Failure to restart within 5 seconds will result in a throw-in being given to the opposition and a corner-kick to the opposition, in the case of a delayed goal kick.
Any player receiving on-field treatment for an injury, (except for the goalkeeper,) will have to leave the field of play and will not be able to return for a minute, unless it was a card-worthy foul.
Only captains will be able to speak with the referee. Any other player attempting to challenge the referee will be yellow-carded.
VAR will also be expanded. It can now review second yellow cards and obvious errors in corner kick decisions.
Pierluigi Collina, the Head of Referees, is also pushing for VAR to be able to monitor fouls at corners that happen before the ball is in play.
By my quick back-of-a-fag packet calculations, if these rules had been in place for the season just finished, instead of winning the league, Arsenal would have been relegated.
… and Spurs would still have fished 17th
The playing the full 90 minutes came in at last World Cup. These new rules should work well alongside that.
They should fucking stop the clock, the idiots even keep it running during heat breaks and if the game is suspended for some reason. Learn something from other sports like rugby, basketball, ice hockey, NFL etc
The keeper injury can be overcome by an agreed hand signal whereby all players will reposition themselves next to the technical area 🙂
I don’t follow football but usually these sorts of rules are added for a reason. What is the problem they are trying to solve? Was there an exploit where a team could have 12 players on the field at once?
The depressing thing about sport, once big money is involved, is how surgical teams get with exploiting rules and loopholes.
I’m saying this as an Australian who literally can not sit through a World Cup game due to the rampant penalty milking that has plagued the sport.
I want to add a new rule, if FIFA are reading this: when a player scores, their jubilant teammates will only be allowed to give them a brief handshake or pat on the back while they are all immediately running back to the half-way line to get on with the game. A brisk wave of acknowledgement to the crowd is also OK, but that’s your lot.
The increasingly elaborate and/or silly and time-consuming celebrations must be banned from now on, according to me.
A jump in the air should be allowed for hat tricks à la Nobby Styles
Yes, of course. There’s no room for joy in sport!
The ones that get me are the players who seem only able to celebrate using anger, a la Rio Ferdinand.
Honest jubilation is always great to see. It’s the obviously pre-rehearsed running to the corner flag and posing in demand for crowd adoration and/or gesturing down a tv camera lens. Possibly done with ironic intent and for clicks, but annoying.
Yes, you’re very excellent, Mr Goal Scorer. Now fuck off.
The only-the-captain speaking to the referee rule will be an interesting one. Harry Kane will probably rather be concentrating on scoring goals as opposed to being the nominated spokesman on behalf of the whole team, regarding every incident. Unless the ref is German and supports Bayern.
The only-the-captain speaking to the referee rule will also be a problem if the goalkeeper is captain. If the ball is anywhere apart from the said keeper’s penalty area, it’ll be pretty difficult for him to have a word with the referee. He can hardly charge 80 metres up the pitch to raise an important point with the ref …
Hmmmm.
Every Premier League team will soon have their goalie as their captain then..
I’d have to add a rule that says if any winning side is seen doing that stupid, ridiculous dance thing that all victorious teams seem compelled by law to do now when they win any championship, cup or playoff game then the result is immediately reversed. You must have seen it…the thing where they wave their arms up and down whilst standing still. Can’t abide it. All teams seem to celebrate in this way now.
The rule changes seem fine to me. I would prefer all players to have to go to the centre circle for goalkeeper injuries but not allowing them to the technical area is a good start.
I do think defenders fouling attackers before a corner is taken should have an equal impact to attackers fouling defenders that result in a goal. Or start picking out players that foul before a corner as ungentlemanly and book them for that – all players.
I would also add that I would be quite happy for the booking of players for removing their shirt in celebration of a goal to stop. Trying to stop silly with silly is not a good direction. And Raphinha did it when he scored the goal that kept us up a couple of years ago. So I actually think it’s iconic now….
@Leedsboy
The player is booked because he’s removed his shirt with the sponsors name on it. They should all fold their arms over the sponsors name after scoring as a way of protest.
I didn’t know that. I’m even more for removing shirts now – or folding their arms.
Score goal, run back to halfway line, receive a nod from captain, go again. Anything else red-card, ten match ban.
More of this sort of thing.
Exactly!
These are are all fine. The cynic in me thinks they are there to ensure the game ends with zero extra time allowing TV to calculate their advert break durations accurately. The 3 minute water/advert break won’t be affected of course.
I dunno – if they’re going to use VAR to check corner decisions couldn’t that pile on plenty of stoppage time?
“Today’s stoppage time is brought to you by Coca Cola”. I kid you not the Americans have sponsors for such things
Victorious teams spraying each other with champagne should be banned from taking part in the next World Cup/Euros. Either drink it or give it to charity.
Not a fan of this endless bureaucratic fiddling in the name of “improving” the sport.
Generally enacted by people who don’t understand the first thing about the true spirit of the game (by which I mean: Americans) and invariably fails to solve the problem in hand, while introducing three new ones by way of compensation.
I don’t need this, or VAR or any of the other sanitised, corporate nonsense, and only a proper ghoul would look to expand VAR given what we’ve already seen from it.
Football is the chaotic, untameable game of the people. All this nonsense comes from that unfortunate cohort with too much money and too little soul who don’t trust what they can’t control, measure and sell by the pound.
To give but one example of why it’s a load of bollocks; on Boxing Day 2010 I went to watch QPR play Swansea at Loftus Road. Adel Taarabt, a sublimely gifted but mercurial playmaker caught light that day, laying on two goals and scoring a brace, the second of which saw him pull out the tricks, nutmeg Joe Allen and drill home from 25 yards out. He made it all look so natural, so nonchalant, as if it was entirely effortless. Pure playground football,
I’m posting the video below – I was directly behind the goal and will remember as long as I live the way Allen’s shoulders slumped after he was kippered – the body language of a man who has now accepted his endeavour is futile – and the pandemonium in the stands as ball hit net.
Three minutes after this clip, Taarabt was substituted. The Rs were 4-0 up and the game was over, decided almost entirely by a single individual. And what stayed with me, and most who were there that day, just as much as the goal, was the way Taarabt left the field. An impossible, slowed down swagger with his shoulders back and his head high, at least a minute taken to exit, drinking in the standing ovation that was joined by more than a few Swansea fans. A walk that was, to me, the essence of football as it should be – poetry rather than prose – and that is as fondly remembered by my family as anything else that ever happened on that pitch.
Referees already have a perfectly decent mechanic to deal with time wasting under existing rules. It’s called a yellow card. The introduction of a series of clocks and timers will arrive with the promise of improved spectacle (particularly for the all important US TV audience), but it will only serve to further leak a little of the heart and soul from the game, and to ensure that organic moments like Taarabt’s cannot occur outside a set of increasingly narrow prescribed tramlines.
If only there was this level of focus on the cheating and chicanery that goes on off the field – not least in the awarding and operating of World Cups – we might actually get somewhere.
OOAA
I hate VAR with a passion – should only be used for goaline technology and obvious errors (which does not include somebody’s kneecap being 1mm in front of someone else’s).
However, money spoils everything. Teams get more and more “professional”, exploring every loophole they can find (sorry, Bingo, but Arsenal and corners come to mind). What else can the administrators do (except follow Sweden and the English Championship and ban effing VAR forever) but try and keep up with all the skullduggery that like it or not is today part and parcel of the modern game.? Expecting players and managers to suddenly go back to the days of sportsmanship and respect is simply pie in the sky. I still love football (watched PSG win the other night with three French blokes whose delight at their win was a joy to see) but my love is a broken one, surrounded by sadness and pain (which will become even more painful when Scotland slump to a two nil defeat to Haiti).
You’re absolutely dreaming about the old days of sportsmanship, I’m afraid.
Maybe if you go back far enough you get 22 tubby geezers with handlebar moustaches all shaking hands and acting like it’s a public school games lesson, but football at every level of the game has eventually brought out pure competitive lunacy for as long as I’ve been alive. The footballers of the 60s, 70s and 80s used to kick seven bells out of one another if allowed. I’ve no problem with teams being desperate to win, it’s exactly as it should be – a bit of passion.
PSG, on the other hand…. pure sportswashing operation, for the benefit of some of the worst people on the planet and with some of the most violent and unpleasant fans in Europe, who spent Saturday night torching police cars even after a win. What a joy to see, eh. Still, at least they take their throw ins within the regulation 5 seconds, that’s the main thing.
Ouch, no bitterness there then re PSG (whose owners are indeed a disgrace and their manager indeed a near-genius)!
I was tongue in cheek re sportsmanship only appearing along with the obscene entrance of vast television revenues – rule cheating in sports (rugby included) has been there since Day 1. My point was that the financial rewards for winning, for instance, the European Cup are so great that clubs have got better and better at bending the rules. Hence the sad need for administrators to try and keep up – I think the World Cup changes are a decent attempt at controlling things.
No bitterness at all. They’re a fantastic football side – one of the best I’ve seen in the Champs League – and we very nearly turned them over.
Spent all day yesterday at the victory parade, amidst what was really just a long sea of joy. The tail end of two of the best weeks of my football-supporting life. Expecting the champs league trophy on top of all that would have been greedy.
But equally not having that club held up as some sort of joyous counterpoint to the evils of, well, whatever terrible thing it is that you think is going on at corners.
If you hate VAR with a passion what makes you think these latest genius suggestions will work any better? They’re being sold on exactly the same bill of goods (will improve the game, increase fairness, etc), by more or less the same people.
Be interesting to see how corners are handled in the World Cup. The Premier League refs have lost all control. They are an absolute joke. As for the final, Arsenal did well to take it to 120 minutes with one shot on target and less than 30% possession. They defended very well and made PSG look distinctly average on the day. Are we back to the “One nil to the Arsenal” days after the more attractive football of the Wenger era? But I am not bitter, they deserved the Premier League title based on performances over the whole season.
I think VAR should be totally automatic or not there at all. Otherwise you just have another average ref in a bunker somewhere potentially making a bad decision as well as the one on the pitch. It’s a shame that most goals can’t be immediately celebrated these days. Same applies to rugby with the TMO which I actually think may be a more flawed system.
The corners thing doesn’t bother me at all. All that’s really happened is that football evolved towards less physical, more technical goalkeepers with less command of their box, and coaches have moved to take advantage. If you’d tried this stuff on Peter Schmeichel or Neville Southall you’d have got knocked into the middle of next week, and the goalkeeping role will now evolve accordingly. No messing around with rules required.
I also think the outrage is pretty selective. Arsenal scored one goal from a corner in their last 20 games and ended the season just one corner goal ahead of Man Utd, about whom I’ve read no complaints. The football writer’s player of the year was Bruno Fernandes, who got half his assists from set piece deliveries (a far higher proportion than Arsenal) for a team who set up identically for corners. It is what it is and it will pass.
Similarly, the Premier League is in one of its cycles where football becomes less fluid and more attritional, largely because teams have finally figured out how to counter Pepball. People talk as if this is singular to Arsenal, but it’s been more or less everyone. The only sides I’ve seen play beautiful football this season with any regularity have been Bournemouth (superb manager) and the continental giants in France and Germany who can afford to rest legs and only play about half a dozen meaningful games a season. Everyone else is scrapping in mud – it’s reminded me of the period circa 2005, when we last saw this sort of Haramball, and which in turn prompted the Guardiola revolution. Again: it will pass.
Much as I prefer the grand romantic vision of football, the Champions League Final, against one of the best attacking sides we’ve seen in decades, is hardly the place to experiment with expansiveness. We were told Arsenal were going to get absolutely bossed, just as pretty much every other side to take on PSG has been. As it turned out, Arsenal dictated the game and the French produced virtually nothing from open play.
Absolutely zero complaints about the way the final was approached – look back over the history of English sides playing in this particular game and you’ll find very few who played beautifully, and maybe only Liverpool in 2018 and Utd with Barca who were faced with a side of such quality (and they both got smashed). It was an engrossing game of football between two teams of contrasting styles and it could absolutely have gone either way.
I agree that VAR should not stop goal celebrations. Nothing should stop goal celebrations, they’re what it’s all about.
I wasn’t specifically talking about Arsenal regarding corners. I do think it is a blight on the game that so much pushing, shoving and holding is going on that it is impossible to know if any real offences are being committed. I would make a simple change. No physical contact before the corner is taken. A linesman can look out for this.
Your other points are reasonably valid and the Champions League final has rarely been a free flowing exhibition of total football. I expect many similar games in the World Cup especially in the expected extreme heat. However if PSG had scored first early on, I believe we would have seen a much more attractive game
No contact before the corner is taken will just lead to one more set of daft, subjective rules for the pundits to endlessly pore over in lieu of actual football.
The goalkeepers and coaches will sort it out.
Honestly, only an Arsenal fan would say this – .” As it turned out, Arsenal dictated the game and the French produced virtually nothing from open play.” If dictated the game means four centre-backs and the rest of the team behind the ball whilst the best team in the world right now pass back and forth trying to work out how to break down this red and white wall then I guess you’re right. For me, despite being surrounded by PSG fans, it was actually a very boring game. I sat down with my first glass of wine and said “I hope Arsenal don’t score in the first few minutes, that’ll ruin the game. Turns out, for once only, I was Right.
As for “I’m not bothered by corners” – it’s not just Arsenal, it’s almost every other team. A simple yellow followed quickly by a red and all that blocking, jostling etc would cease.
You seem a bit worked up about Arsenal, so here’s a beautiful video for you with lots of smiling faces. Should cheer you right up. 😘
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZCuC0-NyQF/?igsh=MTRqb3RoMXk2a2Viaw%3D%3D
Not worked up about Arsenal at all. They deserved to win the league and did an excellent, if boring, job against PSG. I have friends in North London who sent me videos of the parade – they were joyous.
Indeed!
Don’t they need to have breaks for the TV commercials?
The games being played in the USA should be covered by the 2nd amendment allowing players to pack a Gat.
Somewhat ironic there’s all these minor changes to prevent time wasting and there’s going to be a half hour break at half time in the final
I’m happy with the clampdown on goalkeeper-collapsing tactical reshuffles, but there will be a drinks break in World Cup games that’ll facilitate a mid-half tactical tweak. In fairness, as this won’t happen in an English fixture in, say, November, I hope they bring it into our leagues.
As a bit of a footballing sidebar – the retirement of James Milner means that next season (2026/27) will be the first season since 1956/7 NOT to include a player coached at some point by Sir Bobby Robson.
A quick look at footage from, for instance, games in 70s and 80s and would you really want to go back? The pitches were dreadful from November onwards, and that dictated a lot of the way the game was played – physical, often brutal even. A clip turned up on my social media the other day, and the players were pushing and shoving the referee after a penalty decision. The stadiums were mostly dreadful, and facilities unchanged for generations . It really is a totally different game now, particularly at the apex of the pyramid.
VAR is here to stay – there is no going back, as much as it can be a pain, but that is mostly around the time taken for decisions. For me, if it is that hard to make a decision then go with the on field decision. The most annoying ones are around offsides, and the decisions that rule out goals because of a centimetre of a toe being beyond the defender, however that isn’t VAR’s fault – all that is doing is enforcing the laws of the game. If we don’t believe that is offside, then change the rules. For years people moaned about clear mistakes by referees, and now we moan when they are corrected – we can’t have it both ways.
The issue with football as a game is that it is low scoring. A small decision, a mistake here or there, and the result changes – this is what makes it fascinating and unique – an unfancied side can win, just look at all the cup upsets over the years. A lot can hang on an offside decision, or a goalkeeper being judged to have been fouled and so on.
Arsenal fans seem to get very …well, arsy…when it’s pointed out that their success mostly depended on them having successfully exploited set pieces this season, but the stats simply show they scored the most set-piece goals in the Premier League, netting 26 goals from dead-ball situations (excluding penalties) to set a new single-season league record. Across Europe’s top five leagues this season saw them outscore all competitors by a wide margin. This is fine, if a little dull – they have some great attacking players and I personally prefer a little more exciting football, but there you go.
My real bugbear is the wrestling and downright cheating at corners and set pieces – it has become normalised that a foul anywhere else on the pitch doesn’t seem to count in the penalty box at these situations. Referees really do need to grow a pair and call this out.
Lol – is this a little bit rich coming from a Spurs fan, Nigel?
Your lot scored a grand total of one goal fewer from corners than Arsenal in the league this season, and yet ended up barely avoiding relegation. Would rather seem to suggest that those goals were not the X factor being suggested above.
Similarly, it’s untrue that Arsenal outscored competitors by a wide margin – a number of sides ended up with a comparable number, and indeed Villa scored precisely the same number of set piece goals across the season. Liverpool, meanwhile, scored nearly twice as many set piece goals in the Champions League, and yet it didn’t seem to do them much good in that competition.
The truth is that the defence won Arsenal the title, and very nearly the Champions League. And it was indeed a dull watch at times, but – hey – you guys were packing in enough excitement this season for the whole of North London to stay well entertained (even if you did need corners to keep you up) 🙂
I knew this would wind someone up! I think Spurs live rent free in the Woolwich Wanderer’s heads. I did say ‘this is fine’ – congratulations to Arsenal who deserved to win the league as they were the most consistent side and I truly don’t have the visceral hatred of rival teams as seems to be the norm in football these days. Maybe those fans shouting for Arteta’s head a couple of years ago are now thinking twice…? Still a shame about the lack of a European trophy of course….!
I could do without so much ‘excitement’ next season – frankly we were so poor I stopped watching them. The lucky underpants didn’t work, neither did leaving the room ‘cos they always score when I do that. Sometimes I just wish I didn’t care!! I did force myself to watch the Everton game though.
One additional thought around my musings on the low scoring game that is football – it is amazing how often just the odd goal in a couple of games makes all the difference over a 38 game season, at the top and bottom. In the latter stages of the season, we should have beaten Brighton but conceded a late equaliser and Richarlison blasted over an open goal against Leeds, which we again drew. Those 4 points would have eased the end of the season no end!
Haha – fair enough!
I was actually quite glad you didn’t go down in the end. I know a lot of Spurs fans and I don’t take a great deal of pleasure in their suffering – we’ve all had our bleak moments as fans and anyone going through one has my sincere sympathy as it’s not a lot of fun. Plus, it would be a shame not to have a couple of North London derbies to look forward to.
You’re forgetting the Cup Winners Cup. Great day, that was: managed to nick a goal against a side with a technically superior attack (Zola, Asprilla and Brolin – some line up) and just about hang on.
European finals are what they are – they’re rarely a showcase of great football because what’s on the line is just too important and the pressure is too great.
You’ll be familiar with all of the above from last season, when yourselves and Utd played out one of the worst games of the entire campaign and Spurs put up very similar numbers to those managed by Arsenal the other night. You got over the line, and that’s what is ultimately remembered – I don’t imagine a single Spurs fan cared about aesthetics that night.
Weirdly, we very nearly beat PSG in the Super Cup. A great season beckoned…
As always in football, it’s the hope wot kills you….
Not entirely scientific but I did see a survey in a football site that said over 70% of Premier League fans (that’s fans, not chairmen, managers, assistant refs who like their new power) would like VAR to disappear entirely. As before, I’d keep VAR for goal line disputes and really, really obvious ref errors, maybe each side gets one appeal a game?) but there’s no reason I can see for “VAR is here to stay”.
I stopped going to football matches in the late seventies, shit pitches, shit facilities and that overwhelming sense of physical danger. No way we want to turn the clock back to all that, no way .
A pedant writes…you would keep VAR for some things, but it isn’t here to stay..? It certainly needs to be continually looked at and improved, perhaps even scaled back, but some form of it will remain.
I should, of course, have said “VAR as it is used today is surely not here to stay?” As I said, I’d personally keep it for a couple of things but if I had to choose between all or none I’d say “Goodbye, you spoiler of the great game”.
Completely agree on the wrestling and grappling point. I like the sin bin idea. Go in for a cuddle and it’s immediately off to the sin bin for 10 minutes. 15 mins for second offence then send off.
I’m not a big football fan -just keep an eye on the Sheff Utd results and watch in the background if the kids are watching – so I maybe looking at this far too simplistically….
Isn’t the best way forward to use VAR as its name suggests – as an assistant. The on field referee has the final and absolute decision, but can use the VAR technology to check if there is something he didn’t see / is unsure about. No unrequested interventions from VAR – it’s up to the referee to call upon it.
I.e. it’s just an extra tool for the referee – basically, like the TMO used to be in Rugby.
It’s an interesting question. As far as I can tell it was introduced in order to pick up things the referee misses, but I think the feeling has grown that it intervenes too often. ‘Clear and obvious errors’ sounds straightforward, but trying to define it is like nailing jelly to the ceiling. The tail now seems to be wagging the dog.
Goal line technology covers whether the ball has crossed the line and informs the ref immediately, so we don’t need VAR for that. There is an argument maybe for telling the ref about off the ball incidents, but we have assistant refs – maybe have two of them each side covering half the pitch each..?
Now….about that handball law….
They introduced assistant referees behind the goals some years ago, didn’t make a jot of difference and it was soon ditched.
I have come to hate the TMO in rugby. They often intervene when they have no right to doing things like telling the ref to check some possibly marginal forward pass that happened a few phases before a try. I don’t think they are bent but it seems to me that if a team are less expected to win then they are checked more. Rugby is so random and with so many complicated laws that if you look hard enough and long enough you can find a reason to disallow almost any try.
I’m all in favour of a countdown clock that the referee pauses for delays, injuries, substitutions, time wasting etc.
Otherwise, I’m not so fussed, in much the same way I can’t be bothered with the world cup this year.
VAR is definitely better than no VAR. There are refereeing decisions that still stick in peoples minds as grossly unfair (Terry Henry’s hand, Maradona’s hand, Lampard’s disallowed goal). VAR gets rid of that.
There is an irony to people wanting to get rid of VAR because it still gets some things wrong whilst accepting that getting rid will get more things wrong. If it really is just about the stopping of the game two or three times a match, there are plenty of other things that stop and slow the match down that don’t deliver improved decision making that can be resolved first.
Getting rid of VAR would be popular right up until a team loses an important match becasue of the wrong decision being made. Then people would want it again.
Lampard’s goal would stand without needing any VAR these days. Technology would decide. Eventually that should be possible for offsides too. Tennis has largely done away completely with officials and the players nearly always just accept that the technology is correct
Right on cue
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c232d34kkyzo
Completely disagree.
I don’t want to get rid of VAR because it still gets some things wrong. I want to get rid of VAR because it amplifies the misunderstanding that getting everything right is either attainable or desirable.
What VAR has amply demonstrated is the extent to which some decisions in football are subjective. We can all look at the same replay 10 times and come to different conclusions, not least because we’re generally all emotional in one direction or other regarding the outcome.
I would far prefer a world in which officials were less of the focus and everyone was encouraged to accept the basic fact that sometimes there will be incorrect decisions and they will go against your team. And I think we’re more likely to accept that fact if we move on from those decisions rather than pausing the game to watch 15 replays of them while the crowd wait to see whether or not they’re able to celebrate, and then follow that up with another 3 or 4 days of intense conjecture, further camera angles and audio of the discussion between the ref and the VAR team, none of which is actually football.
I don’t want officials at the core of the game. I don’t want to know their names, I don’t want to have everything grinding to a halt while they make a decision over the tannoy. I don’t want Howard Webb to have his own TV show to talk us through the latest farrago like some sort of media trained shaved gorilla. I don’t want any of it. Just let them ref the game, make their mistakes and accept that you cannot perfect this sport, because this sport is and will always be partly chaos.
Lastly, and most importantly, I believe that football is a game of emotion, and that VAR runs completely counter to that essential philosophy. When a goal goes in at a big moment I want to see stands erupting in joy, all dignity and restraint thrown to the wind.
What I don’t want is several thousand people pensively looking at the big screen, waiting to learn whether or not they’re going to be allowed to be happy while a bunch of bods sat in a van five miles up the road run back the preceding minutes of play to see whether they can find a reason – sometimes, it would seem, any reason – to disallow.
I honestly don’t believe that if we got rid of VAR tomorrow people would want it back. I’m at the stage now where if we all sit for two minutes “assessing” a goal that’s gone in against my own team my prevailing feeling is “just give the bloody thing and let’s move on”. Bad decisions are part of football, always have been, always will be. These interminable delays and bureaucratic meddling, on the other hand, are an unwelcome alien presence and should be cast out.
Blimey, I was just about to post those same words (well not exactly the same words, you is more eloquent than me) – never truer words. Just wondering Leedsboy, ever been at a match when your team scores and you jump up and down then the dreaded words “VAR” ? Minutes later, your goal is finally given, you raise a muted cheer which is complete different from the emotional high you had a few moments ago. As far as “VAR gets rid of that”, no it fucking doesn’t!! Twenty different angles in slow-motion still can’t 100% tell you that tackle was ill-timed or worthy of Roy Keane at his ugliest and as for fingernail decisions on offside……
Yes – and it definitely deflates the feeling if your team have scored. But, the flip side is, if your team have had an unjust goal scored against them and for it to be overuled, is you get to cheer that.
I would put it to Bingo that if PSG had scored a last minute winner on Saturday which was clearly offside but the officials had missed it, he would not be grumping about the disruption to the joy of the PSG fans but celebrating the decision that keeps his team in the game. Thats the fickle world of football, people support the team not the game.
You’d be entirely wrong. I’d want VAR gone either way, and I know this for a fact, because I’ve recently been in a not dissimilar situation.
Two weeks ago we got a VAR decision in our favour against West Ham that at the time looked like it might win us the title. I still wanted VAR gone, because it’s absolute garbage for the game.
Cheering refereeing decisions is not an adequate trade off for cheering goals, but it does sum up the prevailing spirit of the technology.
I accept that you would still want VAR to go on balance – it’s a valid point of view and your perogative.
My point was, in that moment, as an Arsenal supporter, you wouldn’t be more concerned with the snuffing out of PSG joy over and above your personal happiness or relief in the call being corrected.
I get it, but your assumption is incorrect. I’ve seen VAR give us plenty of decisions, but it’s never remotely changed my feelings about the technology, even in the moment.
It’s massively counter to what I enjoy about football. Same deal for most of the people I know.
Cap doffed. I would be smugly happy/relieved in the moment.
I’m smugly happy pretty much all the time, I don’t need refereeing decisions for that. 🙂
Tell me you do enjoy your team winning a game in the last minute via a dodgy pen though? A little bit?
Not a dodgy pen, but I’ll be completely honest with you: the Hand of God is one of my all time favourite football moments and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
I like to watch beautiful football, but I also love to see a game won through fluke, fortune or skullduggery. That’s the duality of football fandom. And part of the glory of Diego is that he gave us the absolute zenith of both aspects, all in the same game.
We are definitely different. I can’t stand that goal/clip. I will actively avoid it. Nothing against Maradona (an absolute genius) but that goal still hurts 40 years later. I am probably as good at sulking as Maradona was at football.
Unbeknownst to many I am and always have been a football fan. Like most fans I don’t like VAR or more precisely how it’s used. I’d be supportive of it’s use if and only if it was utilised to ascertain when the ball had crossed the dead ball lines or qoal lines. Everything else leave it up to the officials on the pitch and get on with the match.
I’m in the same camp. If you can automate decision making so we get instant feedback on issues that are clear yes/no decisions then absolutely have at it.
For anything subjective, someone is going to end up making mistakes. Just let it be the person with the whistle and let’s all crack on instead of all this circus we’ve ended up with.
At some point in the not too distant some genius in a suit is going to think handing the decision making over to AI will be a panacea for all of VAR’s ills. It won’t be.
^ exactly this.
You have to smile at the all the pundits who fume at VAR week in week out. It’s become a vital part of the soap opera that they depend on for their living. Take it away and they’d be back to denigrating referees. Someone or something has to be wrong, biased and unpopular.
It’s not perfect and certainly implemented badly, but it’s better than the alternative.
These will be the pundits screaming for a penalty for the foul on Madueke who calmed the hell down once they had watched the replay a couple of times without acknowledging that the ref (and VAR) had got it right.
Coming to a wrong decision is not the point, as made eloquently elsewhere. We have 50 frames per second and could still have the case when a player is onside in one and offside in the next. I believe this actually happened in a quite recent match. More technology is not the answer. Or at least answers the wrong question.
Some high definition cameras can go to 240 frames per second. You have to draw a line somewhere (it seems literally in the case of offsides), at some point the technology will be good enough to be 99.9% right all the time which would be way ahead of how it is now. When this is the case and decisions can be made instantly (or within a second or so) then there is no need for another human checking screens in a bunker 100 miles away (and sometimes getting it wrong). Checking if the ball is over the line is an excellent example of this. Of course there always exists the possibility of the technology failing, but hopefully they would be sensible enough to have backup systems in place. Anyway it doesn’t really matter. it’s only a game 😉
If the VAR evidence is inconclusive, then stick with the onfield decision. And do it quickly. That seems pretty straightforward to me.
And accept that VAR will get it wrong occasionally – which is better than referees getting it wrong regularly.
Never liked you, especially in Wordle.
Dear God, is this where we are heading?
“SEMI-AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE
At the end of a season disfigured by near-constant tear-ups over the use of technology, what could gladden our hearts more going into the GWC than the announcement of new(!) improved(!) refinements to the semi-automated offside technology first trialled at last year’s Coppa Gianni? Fifa boffins have developed a new form of the technology for GWC that automatically sends an alert to an assistant referee if a player is more than 10cm offside, an “improvement” on previous versions that only raised the alarm if a player was 50cm off. The official will still have a choice of whether to raise their flag and the technology will not be able to spot the closest offsides – and subjective calls on whether, for example, a player was interfering with play will still be left to the semi-automated humans running the line. Fifa says the system will protect players from knack sustained when play needlessly continues while the officials await a VAR referral. It will all be backed up by, it says here, AI-enabled 3D avatars of all 1,248 GWC squad players who will be corralled into special chambers for a digital once-over. While the rest of us can bask in a tournament that absolutely definitely will now contain no refereeing/technology discourse.”
I may need counselling after that opening….
The problem with offside is that it is a bloody complicated ruleset. On top of that, it is interpretive. With a dozen camera angles proving inconsistently. With experts who don’t actually understand the offside law.
The solution is either get used to it being imperfect (i.e. never, ever moan about a decision) or introduce technology to minimise the errors. I’m ok with either.
Fifa boffins have not improved anything, ever. Fact.
Disallowing goals because the striker’s little toe is off side is patiently stupid. More goals mean a better spectacle and teams would have to shift themselves and try to score them rather than scoring one and sitting back. “Winning” under the strategy of stifling play may be lovely for the diehard supporter but is anti football and they should be ashamed when they look in the mirror.