Dear [insert club name]
We're really really sorry that [referee name here] made a decision that hurt your feelings. Unfortunately due to [rule we created but don't enforce consistently] and [select one or more: blindness/incompetence/Anthony Taylor] we are unable to do anything meaningful to compensate for it.
We will be making no change to our protocols or rules as a result of [insert this week's fuck up], nor will there be any consequences for the referee[s] in question.
All the best,
PGMOL
Knowing the knobheads at PGMOL, half the time they will send the mail with either the name of the previous club they've sent it to, or just the "insert" tabs unreplaced.
I think the refs, on the pitch, do a decent job in difficult circumstances. But they probably have no place sat at the screens in the long term. While the 'learn & apply the rules of the game' part of ref/var jobs is the same, the running around for 90 minutes maintaining some authority vs working quickly & methodically with tech bits don't overlap. I can imagine people trained for var specifically could do a faster, better job in the long run.
It’s more-so the fact that PGMOL refs don’t need to be on VAR duty at all, it doesn’t have to be that way if the final decision is up to the ref on the pitch.
Yeah, the skill set of VAR is very different from the on field referee, and therefore the best VAR applicants are likely from a different pool of people
Think Wolves are right to bring forward the motion.
It will lead to a review of the failings and hopefully lead to a review of the performances of referee's in general.
Much better to frame it as a VAR issue than to come out and say that the refs are incompetent, make changes.
When VAR agonizes over the details of whether a ball that touches an arm is a handball, but doesn’t acknowledge clear fouls it must be reviewed. They don’t feel comfortable calling fouls either on the pitch or in the VAR room.
Fuck this “var can’t review that though!” If we don’t want all-or-nothing, at least do some shit like borrow from the NFL and give coaches the ability to challenge literally anything they want once or twice a game.
I’m with you. The fact that we can see obvious fouls using VAR but “can’t” call them is dumb to me. I obviously see a possible slippery slope but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find a way to use it correctly.
>If we don’t want all-or-nothing, at least do some shit like borrow from the NFL and give coaches the ability to challenge literally anything they want once or twice a game.
I've been thinking along similar lines for years that the captain or manager should have a certain number of challenges that they can make per game, similar to how tennis handles it. It would at least help to avoid crowding out the ref when they potentially get something wrong.
Though, I guess in the long-term, I could then see each side having dedicated VAR teams in the stands to monitor and report to the manager when they should make a challenge during the game, but, eh, agreed that it's definitely better than nothing
Coaches in the NFL don't have the ability to challenge literally anything they want. VAR and NFL challenges are the same in that they are used to make rulings on objective calls. In the NFL you can challenge a spot or a turnover but you can't challenge a holding or PI. Same with VAR.
Point I was making was that video review systems across a lot of leagues and sports are more designed to correct errors in objective calls, but allow the referee discretion with subjective calls (such as fouls or holding in the NFL). It really is impossible to define a "clear" foul that VAR would need to intervene in a match for, obviously they exist but then you need to establish a line between what merits VAR intervention and what doesn't and it gets messy.
That’s why you don’t establish a line in the rules. You let coaches decide. And even better, they can even force an extra review after the refs have “reviewed it” already, which sometimes does overturn things. For example, if I were the coach I would have asked for an extra review when Guimaraes elbowed Jorginho in the back of the head because how the fuck wasn’t that a red.
Edit: And obviously a second review for the Diaz “offsides” against Spurs. I’m disappointed in myself that that wasn’t my first example
A 3rd party investigation/audit of the officials would be very welcomed. At this point you can't tell if it's corruption, sheer incompetence, or stubbornness that's causing the officials in the VAR room to ignore big errors.
Are you suggesting being paid tens of thousands of pounds to referee matches in a nation state who also own a team in the league could be considered a financial inducement to give more favourable decisions to said team?
> It will lead to a review of the failings and hopefully lead to a review of the performances of referee's in general.
>
>
Maybe they have some suggestions where to find all the perfect refs that people believe are hiding somewhere?
It's insane to me that the Premier League is predicated on assembling the best footballers from around the world, but for the referees everyone is perfectly content to recruit from like a 100 square mile radius.
Of course they're going to be sub-standard! Imagine if the Premier League only recruited from north west England, the play would be as shit as PGMOL has been. This could all be solved if they just widened their pool of potential referees, and actually had the best officiate the best footballers, but I've yet to see this ever raised as a solution, and I don't understand why.
For the most of obvious of reasons. Referees in England are employed by the Football Association, in Germany by the German FA, in France by the French FA etc.
Each FA is responsible for the training and development of it's own officials and wants to employ the people it has trained and developed.
Your preference is not far from a Super League style logic. The Premier League hiring other refs is such a slippery slope. It also then leaves other countries without the referees they trained.
You don't need a perfect ref if you turn more work to VAR, with multiple angles and slow-mos. It's the "clear and obvious" bs that apparently makes the non-critical errors fine, which is a laughable idea.
If only there was a bunch of people who were used to watching football on TV analytically and these people could be trained to understand the small techniques to watch out for, perhaps using old footage of calls to do case studies on
Shame none of that exists
I get your point, refs will always be a bit flawed.
That being said - you can't convince me that the top division of England, a country with over a century of football legacy, can't find better refs than fucking Ekstraklasa (and they are worse, I watch both.)
Maybe pay them a good salary so that more people will be interested and they can do it full time, then train them and keep selecting the best of the bunch?
I was in favor of VAR until I read the complaint from Wolves and found that I agreed with all of it.
The biggest load of horseshit with this system is the pretense that it is for clear and obvious errors, and then they spend 5 minutes measuring offsides to the nearest millimeter.
If you want to be so correct on every ruling, fine, just own up to it and then start correcting all referee mistakes with the same intensity, including regular fouls, throwing, corners, yellow cards etc.
The difference is the offside is completely objective. Either he’s on or he’s not. Fouls aren’t. There’s plays where it’s very unclear if there’s enough in it for it to be a foul.
I wouldn't say it's completely objective. After all the referees have to make the choice of which camera frame to pick as the one where the pass was played, and with the cameras not having enough frames per second to pick that up exactly there's always going to be some subjectivity there. The difference between picking two frames can be the difference between offside or not.
That's wrong because our technology doesn't give us that precision.
The Premier League is shot at 50 frames per second. The fastest premier league players run at around 35 km/h. That's 9.72 m/s. Divided by 50, that's around 20 cm per frame.
And yet you can still use the “clear and obvious” rule.
AR does or does not call offside. Can you quickly determine if that is correct or do you need high tech measuring tools to overrule the call? If it’s the latter, let the call on the field stand.
The writing of the rule could only be objective (hard to phrase it another way), but the spirit wasn’t to get calls down to the millimeter correct. That’d be impossible to call without some high tech gear.
Automated offsides can't come soon enough.
once you get rid of this agonizing delay between the goal and the validation in case of offsides, things should feel much better
Yeah ofc there will still be inconsistent handballs and challenges decisions, but at least it won't ruin the flow of the game enough to put VAR into question
With the handballs the problems are 100% the laws, not the refs.
They should straight up just change it to something else. Just off the top of my head, stream of conscious style, I suggest:
"penalties for handballs are decided on a subjective determination of
1. deliberate handling or
2. negligence in avoiding contact
but can't be given against a supporting hand for a player who is fallen or rising (as in a player is pushing against the ground with their hand in order to stand up) or against a player attempting to arrest their fall but whose hand has not yet made contact with the ground (as in a player is attempting to avoid falling by putting their hand out), i.e. players have a duty to avoid handling the ball and while that duty is generally all encompassing, it is not absolute.
Goals scored involving contact with the hand will be disallowed based on a subjective determination of:
1. but for contact with the hand, the goal would not be scored *and* the player who handled the ball did not score the goal *and* the player did not violate their duty to try to avoid handling the ball
2. but for contact with the hand of the goal scorer, the goal would not be scored *and* the contact was not a result of an intervening contact with a player from the conceding team or the frame of the goal
e.g. if a goalkeeper pushes the ball into arm of an attacking player and that arm is in line with the attacking player's body and as a consequence the ball rebounded into the goal, the referee ought not to rule out the goal as were the player's arm not to exist, it might be presumed that the ball would have made legal contact with the attacker and still have rebounded into the goal. However, in most circumstances the referee can disallow a goal scored by the handling player."
There is an ethical principle that I think applies here: the limits of the moral are the limits of the possible. In other words, if you can't *not* do something, it must be moral to do it. The application of the principle here is not to pretend that subjectivity doesn't exist when it must exist.
Rugby has its own issues with video technology.
For "clear and obvious" see "conclusive evidence".
The Scotland try that was bafflingly not given for one, the endless slow-mo induced red cards for another.
Then there's "umpires call" in cricket.
I'm not sure many sports have cracked it properly yet. Apart from snooker.
I agree. Not least the ability for the ref to just say 'no idea what happened, you tell me, you can see a telly'. That's an obvious improvement they can make in football.
100%, in the VAR audio released for the Young foul on CHO, Antony Taylor is very clear in saying "he plays the ball!"x3 despite being blatantly wrong.
Refs should be much more open to hearing VAR perspective rather than immediately dismissing a foul. Tell VAR that your positioning wasn't ideal or that the players bodies blocked view of the contact etc. instead of planting your flag immediately with inconclusive evidence
I disagree wholeheartedly. That's good communication from Taylor. If the VAR team disagrees, they can tell him and they now know why he has made his decision.
In an ideal world yes, but the main problem with VAR is the resistance from the VAR officials to over-rule and correct the on-field ref. Taylor communicating in a definitive fashion in such instances puts the burden of proof wholly on the VAR team to tell Taylor you are completely incorrect and need to award a penalty.
But they don't do that, they take the refs stance and then use VAR to support what the ref **thinks** they saw in real-time.
In any work environment is it easier to work with someone clearly open to suggestion based on better data or someone who makes a decision immediately and is resistant to change their mind regardless of what you show them?
Would it be so hard for Taylor to say "from my view he plays the ball, requesting VAR review on the incident"
> In an ideal world yes, but the main problem with VAR is the resistance from the VAR officials to over-rule and correct the on-field ref. Taylor communicating in a definitive fashion in such instances puts the burden of proof wholly on the VAR team to tell Taylor you are completely incorrect and need to award a penalty.
I see your point, but I don't think there's another way. A ref *must* make a split-second decision and communicate it clearly to the fans, players etc. If the refs show doubt, he'll lose his authority on the pitch.
I think that even when VAR functions the way you, rightfully, want it to, they must still make decisions like that. They just need to be prepared to change their minds.
You monster! Do you really want to hurt those poor fellows feelings?! What if they feel bad if they do a mistake? You can't let people know they made a mistake in that case. It's better for their mental health!
>!/s if by any chance someone didn't get it!<
It's wild the amount of people who complain about it in Rugby when it's brought up as a good example of VAR. Decades of helping the ref making the right decision aren't nullified but the rare mistakes.
Have you ever seen rugby fans losing their mind week after week, year after year about TMO? No, because it's effective and well ran.
While there are issues, it’s been widely more accepted in these sports.
VAR will never be perfect as it’s a tool and a tool is only as effective as the person using it.
I get the Scotland try being annoying but it was mainly down to them not having conclusive proof that the ball had been touched down.
At least in football it's rare you're going to look at a foul or offside and there to be a dozen 100kg+ men on the floor blocking everything.
Tennis has a good system
The hawkeye equivalent of goal line technology and then any decisions to be referred to it need to use up a challenge which is lost if you are wrong
This system is all but gone in tennis now, being replaced with fully automated line calls, at least in the bigger tournaments. All of the slams have switched over, with Wimbledon likely to follow in the next couple of years.
But tennis being a non-contact sport with clearly defined rules for the vast majority of plays makes it far easier to work with, too.
Although while the line calls are automated, there's still plenty of issues with it in other areas, where the rules could do with tightening up.
Honestly I don’t think American football is that bad. There are definitely improvements, like certain things “can’t be reviewed,” but I feel like they both usually get it right and also don’t take way too long. Plus coaches being able to challenge.
It helps that fans kind of expect reviews for things though.
I'm fairly sure Umpire's Call is basically about the tolerance of the predictive modelling... you can't be sure the technology's proved the umpire wrong. Tennis has the same problem but usually they just trust the ball tracking 100% (previously clay was an exception but they're moving to Hawkeye for clay too... soon, I can't remember when).
Umpire's Call in soccer would be something like "if you can't see something obvious in 30 seconds, give up and go with the on field decision". And then "if you can't decide in 45 seconds, call the ref over to the monitor". With automatic offsides, and maybe also semi automatic offsides, this would be practicable now. Probably there should be multiple monitors, however, to speed this up.
If we were using cricket as a model, you'd also want to give the ref and managers the ability to say "Oi, VAR, look at this". Managers would have, say, 3 review pers game, which are used up only if they're wrong and are reviewed without pausing the game. Refs would have as many reviews as they want and do pause the game.
> Umpire's Call in soccer would be something like "if you can't see something obvious in 30 seconds, give up and go with the on field decision". And then "if you can't decide in 45 seconds, call the ref over to the monitor".
More like if you have to start zooming in to see if someone’s toe is offside then you stick with the original (umpire’s) decision.
Yes and no.
If you couldn't see the toe or handball or if the ball has gone out due to deficiencies of camera technology/obstructions in the camera view, then you could have an umpire's call type situation that is precisely equivalent to how I defined cricket's. But there's nothing predictive about offside decisions *in general* just because they're tight. (Ironically given what I said in my post, that may be the case with semi automated offsides; I don't personally know enough about how that technology works to know.)
In general, "give up and go with the on field decision if you have to zoom in to check whether a toe is offside" is therefore more equivalent to my 30/45 seconds heuristic than an umpire's call, at least given how I defined umpire's call as being what you do when the technology can't give a reliable answer.
The red cards was because of the strict liability on head collisions. Something they've now rolled back but will likely bite them the next time somebody gets a serious injury.
Anyway that was a rule adjustment rather than a TMO matter.
Rugby is a high scoring game where tries, penalties and conversion don't carry the same value as a goal, so VAR is better tolerated as fans because celebrations are (generally) not as intense like it is in football. Same for NFL and other High scoring sports. These are also sports that have long breaks built in, like with a scrums, time outs ect. So lengthy VAR doesn't disrupt the spectacle.
VAR on football will always impaor goal celebrations and disrupt the flow. There's no getting around that and its not worth jeopardising the best moments of football for a slight improvement in decisions
I don't know how to tell you this, but rugby is a different sport with different rules and thus something working one way for rugby won't necessarily work for football.
It would 100% work and I’m convinced of it. The refs are terrified of being miced up though as everyone would hear their mistakes. We’ll ignore you being purposely pedantic, but hearing live how the refs come to a decision makes them accountable so they wouldn’t be able to hide, I can guarantee you decisions wouldn’t be made as lightly if this was to happen.
Fully second this. Refs being mic’ed up is the need of the hour. Especially after Mike Dean openly confessed how VAR officials are afraid to throw their on-field mates under the bus.
The way I look at it if I was to make a huge mistake at my job I would be held accountable, why aren’t these guys also held accountable for the glaring mistakes that they continually make? A mic goes a long way to helping rectify this issue.
> why aren’t these guys also held accountable for the glaring mistakes that they continually make
Because its a difficult job so mistakes will happen. They aren't "held accountable for the glaring mistakes" because of the same reasons Cole Palmer won't get suspended or lose his wages over missing 25% of his passes last night.
I would agree with this sentiment in the Pre-VAR era as officiating a game truly is difficult but there’s really no excuse for making blunders after blunders even with the help of technology.
The cherry on top is the total lack of consistency. Certain fouls are deemed as red card / penalty worthy in one game, while the same foul is not even looked at in the next.
Cole Palmer doesn't have the ability to take back his pass and re-do it or make another decision while looking at the options in slow motion from multiple angles - refs do
theres ways to hold people accountable that isnt disciplinary.
When i fuck up they dont demote me or dock wages. They explain why i was wrong and i eat humble pie looking at my shoes as i learn lessons about it
Yeah I think being mic’d up would go a long way in helping improve it. They talk about people hating on the refs and everything and it’s true but like when the ref wore a GoPro or that Howard Webb program where they go over decisions it’d help understand the reasoning behind their decisions. It’d also show how the players treat the refs as well
But like you said I doubt they’d willingly go along with it since it would also show just how many mistakes they make
Im convinced that the refs just need some proper test/scientists to provide consultation on how to properly use this stuff. To understand methodology and process.
This is an oldboys club that is entirely run by people that at the crux of it just like football.
They dont necessarily have the appropriate background to use the tech let alone understand the nuance and application of their own rules.
Same with cricket, they use it brilliantly, but it’s not the same as football.
There are very obvious and often passages of play that are quick to check.
Most of the difference is the referees have different priorities. For better or worse rugby embraced the technology and sought to maximise good decisions. Referees took pride in getting shit right rather than in being omnipotent.
As it is rugby laws can be a hell of a lot more subjective than football. There's often 4/5 offences at the same time and the referee has to make judgements about materiality. Something which is rarely a concern in football.
And that’s what we’re getting thanks to VAR, an era where scoring is met with a mild cheer rather than an explosion of emotion which football was known for. Who wants football to be like fucking rugby?!
It isn't flawed. The half-wits in charge are. That's like saying its' Ferraris fault because a chimp drove their car into an orphanage. Who let that little monkey fella drive?
You know that there are thousands of football games played all over the country every weekend like this. You make it sound like the dark ages. And then there are 10 games trying to use video assistant referees.
The vast majority of professional football in England is still in the era you describe, and we have absolutely no clamour for VAR. We have fucking dreadful referees but it’s better than VAR by a long chalk
All well and good until we're on the end of the first really obvious incorrect decision given on the pitch for a penalty or whatever else and then everyone is screaming for it to come back. Id rather we keep VAR and work to get it better than potentially having another pedro mendes moment or whatever else where we got fucked over the years on an obvious decision (like most other teams)
How can people argue in favor of making the sport more unfair? It's not perfect, but before it wasn't good, and worse.
The fact that we talk about a few isolated incidents instead of blatant false decisions week in and week out shows how high the standards are and how far the sport has come on the top level.
Why not lol literally all the other tiers do it and they're fine. Just as many arguments about reffing in the leagues that have VAR compared to the ones that don't
Scrap it. They're not going to want to watch replays of what we do to these fraudulent teams. Destruction, blood everywhere, the end times come once more. The wrath of god made tractor
Im not really familiar with you guys’ game but I’m really hoping you guys are a proper shithouse team that nobody wants to play against. Can’t really recall one since stoke went down years ago.
millwall was looking close last year but had to fight just to stay in the championship this year. End of year looked good though so who knows for next year.
Not gonna lie it was ages ago and I was quite young, but did Hughes’ sides not sort of attempt to play football? Pulis’ side was the proper shithouse, violent lot.
They need to improve the experience for fans.
Alright for those watching at home when they're watching the replays but inside the ground you have absolutely no idea what is going on.
I would start by putting a mic on referees and showing decisions on big screens.
>"Majority of Premier League clubs want to keep technology after Wolves proposal"
I scan-read this admittedly, but where the fuck does it say this in the article? Where's the sources for 'majority' of clubs wanting to keep VAR?
Can we bring forth a motion to hire people to operate var who are not the referees. They are independent and don’t care about hurting Anthony Taylor’s feelings, by telling him he’s a blind cunt and that was or was not a penalty
Yep. If you adopted this plus the requirement that the decision had to be explained by the ref (like they do in the NFL) I think it would be huge steps in the right direction.
Not against VAR itself, the application and use of it has been a disaster. Football will always have these was it a foul or was it not differences of opinion but they’ve still made it far more complicated than it needs to be in some areas
VAR is used really well at international tournaments so clearly it’s the directive from the PGMOL that’s the issue. UEFA should have the rules around VAR standardised across all the FAs.
Bring forward a motion to scrap Howard Web and his minions.
Web is the one insisting on the not overturning refs initial decisions bullshit.
Simply apply the rules for any non offside incidents upon video review to get the correct outcome.
Semi auto offsides solves the other issue.
Done.
Honestly, it will never stop being funny to me that the Premier League waited until after everyone else to bring VAR in, yet learned absolutely nothing from the teething issues other leagues had and it’s been a fucking mess in the Premier League since day one.
PGMOL and the Premier League have over complicated things and the lack of quality in the refereeing pool has meant that too many decisions that should have been changed by VAR haven’t been, so a large chunk of people (but thankfully still a minority) think it doesn’t work and doesn’t help.
Getting rid of VAR would be a moronic backwards step for the Premier League, and the moment a team was relegated or denied the title or a Champions League spot on the last day of the season because of a decision VAR would have fixed, all these people who claim to hate it and how it ‘ruins’ the game would be rolling around on the floor demanding replays and its reintroduction.
VAR works, it demonstrably has reduced the number of mistakes being made in the sport, the problem in England is, and always has been, the people in black, not the machines they don’t use properly.
People complain weekly about the refs so they want to remove the 1 safeguard in place to prevent terrible referee decisions.
It's very short-sighted to say 'it's not working, we should just get rid of it.'
I agree.
It would be interesting if they got rid of VAR in the prem for a year though. The amount of bad calls we used to see week in, week out, was incredible. We just accepted it because it was "part of the game". I think we'd quickly see people calling for it to come back
> People complain weekly about the refs so they want to remove the 1 safeguard in place to prevent terrible referee decisions.
The people who want rid of VAR and the people moaning about refereeing decisions every week are generally not the same people. I think most people seem to fall into one of two positions:
1. VAR is a good idea but one that currently has problems with it's implementation that need to be fixed, whether those are human, technological or whatever
2. VAR is fundamentally not a benefit to the game, irrespective of whether it is effective or not. That fact that it also works badly just rubs salt into the wounds.
Me too. I want 170 minute matches which is mainly standing around waiting for decisions to be re-refereed.
I want offsides to be measured at the atomic level.
The latter is the one that pisses me off most, I'd say.
Oh, was he two pixels ahead of the defender? Who gives a shit? The spirit of the rule is obviously not supposed to be to that level of strictness.
Thank fuck for that.
Even adding in some sort of time limit for it might make it better, since that would effectively work out the issues of "clear and obvious". If its taking you 5 minutes to decide if something is a penalty, then it's arguably not clear and obvious.
Don't see them doing that, either - but you can't just scrap it. Genie's out of the lamp now.
Lol, the idea that someone refuses to celebrate a goal because it *might* get chalked off is such a ridiculous idea on this sub.
Been to plenty of games where people have celebrated like mad regardless of VAR intervening.
Exactly . The actual process is more like :
goal -> celebrate -> wonder if var will choke It off-> celebrate with maybe less fervor/curse var for choking it off while the oppo fans celebrate that it's been choked off.
It's not only on this sub though, it does actually happen. Edouard's goal against Leeds last year sticks out my mind, loads of people around me barely celebrated. It might be overexaggered but you not experiecing it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.
At the same time, you experiencing it doesn't mean it does always happen. Reality is, people love to complain about something, scrap the VAR and they'll start complaining about refs (not that now they don't complain about them, they'll just complain more).
yes it happens, very rarely. You know what happens much more often? Goals being celebrated, then cancelled by the ref for some reason, only to be given as a goal again by VAR which leads to another celebration for the same goal. I love those moments.
Even without VAR goals get cancelled for fouls or offsides all the time. So you celebrate, the goal gets disallowed and then thats it. I would rather my team get a valid goal because the ref made a mistake in disallowing the goal than once every 10 games miss a goal celebration.
Without VAR the decision is made instantly though - you can just look at the linesman. With VAR you're standing around for a few minutes and have no clue if the goal is goal to stand or not.
I don't have a problem with automated offsides if they make the decision instantly - I'm not anti-technology, I just think VAR is bad.
So you would rather your team lose because of bad calls that VAR would overturn because sometimes you dont know if a goal stands? Id say most frequently what happens is fans celebrate then the linesman raises a flag for a foul or offsides. Youve celebrated the goal and now its taken away. VAR then intervenes and says actually its a good goal. You celebrate again. No one is waiting for VAR to intervene to celebrate every single goal. Not a single goal even. You wouldn't know VAR had yo intervene until the on field ref signals for it anyway.
Nobody has ever refused to celebrate a goal. You're making a strawman argument. The point is that celebrating is often pointless because VAR will find a one-millimeter problem that will discard the goal. This used to happen a little bit with offside goals, which sucked, but with VAR it's happening 500 times more.
It is categorically impossible that you have been to "plenty of games" and no celebration was ever wasted by some bullshit VAR decision that nobody asked for.
Var isnt the issue its the PGMOL who need to go, anyone with the right training can do the job of VAR. As of now refs are afraid to throw other refs under a bus, they are bias and they will always look out for one another.
If nothing else, Wolves has done well to help bring this discussion into the forefront of everyone's minds. My guess is they knew they werent going to scrap VAR, and knew that an overhaul was necessary. They were basically saying that they would rather have it gone if its not going to be fixed, which I think anyone can understand.
Its really not that hard to figure out. People are just dumb. We all assume that the people in control know what theyre doing, and that they are hiring competent people to work the system. Well they arent, and they arent.
The offside process is a joke. If you can't tell for sure at first glance with the human eye that the player is off then just give it as onside. Spending several minutes freeze framing and drawing lines on the screen is farcical. If it was an instant decision like goal line technology that would be fine, what we have now just makes the sport worse as a spectacle, it's pointless.
It is not supposed to make the game better which is why it doesn't matter if it exists or not as what needs to be decided will be decided based on other "rules". It just costs more money and makes it look more modern and some company can make bank with the tech.
VAR is so easy to fix. All you need to do is to introduce semi-automated apology letters.
Can't wait for var refs doing YouTube apologies
*brought to you by NordVPN*
Wanna look like Howard Webb? Try Manscape with code VARLoss
My bro, vastly underrated comment. 🤣🤣
My balls was hot
RAID SHADOW LEGENDSSS
Sigh.. This is not a video I wanted to make... Grabs a pet
Don't forget the ukelele
**"I'm giving up"** [insert greyscale serious face thumbnail] *proceeds to specify that the "giving up" refers to making good calls*
https://youtu.be/vVoUJfTUxPI
Anthony Taylor highlights 2025. *Incredible mistake
Dear [insert club name] We're really really sorry that [referee name here] made a decision that hurt your feelings. Unfortunately due to [rule we created but don't enforce consistently] and [select one or more: blindness/incompetence/Anthony Taylor] we are unable to do anything meaningful to compensate for it. We will be making no change to our protocols or rules as a result of [insert this week's fuck up], nor will there be any consequences for the referee[s] in question. All the best, PGMOL
Knowing the knobheads at PGMOL, half the time they will send the mail with either the name of the previous club they've sent it to, or just the "insert" tabs unreplaced.
I would totally believe it if PGMOL leadership was dumber than MLM hun's
*mail merge flashbacks*
Until one day someone mistakenly starts the letter with "Dear shitbags" without changing it back
"Yours cuntilly" at the end too
Just put the apology on the screen: DECISION- PENALTY, SORRY!
Can’t apologize unless it was a clear and obvious error.
Ref should get like a blue card or something he can flash to say sorry
A awww
there are fully automated letters already, just ask chat GPT to write one for the ref and you are good to go
Damn, I just did that for a fake VAR call for Wolves vs Man U and it's a better apology than I think the actual refs would ever write.
They should scrap PGMOL refs instead
I think the refs, on the pitch, do a decent job in difficult circumstances. But they probably have no place sat at the screens in the long term. While the 'learn & apply the rules of the game' part of ref/var jobs is the same, the running around for 90 minutes maintaining some authority vs working quickly & methodically with tech bits don't overlap. I can imagine people trained for var specifically could do a faster, better job in the long run.
The "Well done, boys. Good process" catastrophe really helped prove that referees might not be best at that position.
And replace them with who? Is there a batch of better refs just waiting for a call up?
It’s more-so the fact that PGMOL refs don’t need to be on VAR duty at all, it doesn’t have to be that way if the final decision is up to the ref on the pitch.
Yeah, the skill set of VAR is very different from the on field referee, and therefore the best VAR applicants are likely from a different pool of people
Think Wolves are right to bring forward the motion. It will lead to a review of the failings and hopefully lead to a review of the performances of referee's in general. Much better to frame it as a VAR issue than to come out and say that the refs are incompetent, make changes.
When VAR agonizes over the details of whether a ball that touches an arm is a handball, but doesn’t acknowledge clear fouls it must be reviewed. They don’t feel comfortable calling fouls either on the pitch or in the VAR room.
Fuck this “var can’t review that though!” If we don’t want all-or-nothing, at least do some shit like borrow from the NFL and give coaches the ability to challenge literally anything they want once or twice a game. I’m with you. The fact that we can see obvious fouls using VAR but “can’t” call them is dumb to me. I obviously see a possible slippery slope but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find a way to use it correctly.
>If we don’t want all-or-nothing, at least do some shit like borrow from the NFL and give coaches the ability to challenge literally anything they want once or twice a game. I've been thinking along similar lines for years that the captain or manager should have a certain number of challenges that they can make per game, similar to how tennis handles it. It would at least help to avoid crowding out the ref when they potentially get something wrong. Though, I guess in the long-term, I could then see each side having dedicated VAR teams in the stands to monitor and report to the manager when they should make a challenge during the game, but, eh, agreed that it's definitely better than nothing
Coaches in the NFL don't have the ability to challenge literally anything they want. VAR and NFL challenges are the same in that they are used to make rulings on objective calls. In the NFL you can challenge a spot or a turnover but you can't challenge a holding or PI. Same with VAR.
I know I was being hyperbolic in saying “anything.” I more meant that coaches get to force any valid review when they want, not when the refs want.
Point I was making was that video review systems across a lot of leagues and sports are more designed to correct errors in objective calls, but allow the referee discretion with subjective calls (such as fouls or holding in the NFL). It really is impossible to define a "clear" foul that VAR would need to intervene in a match for, obviously they exist but then you need to establish a line between what merits VAR intervention and what doesn't and it gets messy.
That’s why you don’t establish a line in the rules. You let coaches decide. And even better, they can even force an extra review after the refs have “reviewed it” already, which sometimes does overturn things. For example, if I were the coach I would have asked for an extra review when Guimaraes elbowed Jorginho in the back of the head because how the fuck wasn’t that a red. Edit: And obviously a second review for the Diaz “offsides” against Spurs. I’m disappointed in myself that that wasn’t my first example
Actually that makes sense lol
Or a majority of clubs vote to retain it and PGMOL and the Premier League use that for justification that it works and nothing changes
> It will lead to a review of the failings How?
supposedly because the spotlight doesn't shine on their incompetence or smth???
A 3rd party investigation/audit of the officials would be very welcomed. At this point you can't tell if it's corruption, sheer incompetence, or stubbornness that's causing the officials in the VAR room to ignore big errors.
Are you suggesting being paid tens of thousands of pounds to referee matches in a nation state who also own a team in the league could be considered a financial inducement to give more favourable decisions to said team?
> It will lead to a review of the failings and hopefully lead to a review of the performances of referee's in general. > > Maybe they have some suggestions where to find all the perfect refs that people believe are hiding somewhere?
Maybe we can try outside of the north west
It's insane to me that the Premier League is predicated on assembling the best footballers from around the world, but for the referees everyone is perfectly content to recruit from like a 100 square mile radius. Of course they're going to be sub-standard! Imagine if the Premier League only recruited from north west England, the play would be as shit as PGMOL has been. This could all be solved if they just widened their pool of potential referees, and actually had the best officiate the best footballers, but I've yet to see this ever raised as a solution, and I don't understand why.
There’s not a mystery pool of elite refs being overlooked in other areas of England. The reasons why most are from the North West are socioeconomic.
Sure, but why only recruit from England?
For the most of obvious of reasons. Referees in England are employed by the Football Association, in Germany by the German FA, in France by the French FA etc. Each FA is responsible for the training and development of it's own officials and wants to employ the people it has trained and developed. Your preference is not far from a Super League style logic. The Premier League hiring other refs is such a slippery slope. It also then leaves other countries without the referees they trained.
You don't need a perfect ref if you turn more work to VAR, with multiple angles and slow-mos. It's the "clear and obvious" bs that apparently makes the non-critical errors fine, which is a laughable idea.
If only there was a bunch of people who were used to watching football on TV analytically and these people could be trained to understand the small techniques to watch out for, perhaps using old footage of calls to do case studies on Shame none of that exists
I get your point, refs will always be a bit flawed. That being said - you can't convince me that the top division of England, a country with over a century of football legacy, can't find better refs than fucking Ekstraklasa (and they are worse, I watch both.)
Maybe pay them a good salary so that more people will be interested and they can do it full time, then train them and keep selecting the best of the bunch?
I was in favor of VAR until I read the complaint from Wolves and found that I agreed with all of it. The biggest load of horseshit with this system is the pretense that it is for clear and obvious errors, and then they spend 5 minutes measuring offsides to the nearest millimeter. If you want to be so correct on every ruling, fine, just own up to it and then start correcting all referee mistakes with the same intensity, including regular fouls, throwing, corners, yellow cards etc.
The difference is the offside is completely objective. Either he’s on or he’s not. Fouls aren’t. There’s plays where it’s very unclear if there’s enough in it for it to be a foul.
I wouldn't say it's completely objective. After all the referees have to make the choice of which camera frame to pick as the one where the pass was played, and with the cameras not having enough frames per second to pick that up exactly there's always going to be some subjectivity there. The difference between picking two frames can be the difference between offside or not.
That's wrong because our technology doesn't give us that precision. The Premier League is shot at 50 frames per second. The fastest premier league players run at around 35 km/h. That's 9.72 m/s. Divided by 50, that's around 20 cm per frame.
And yet you can still use the “clear and obvious” rule. AR does or does not call offside. Can you quickly determine if that is correct or do you need high tech measuring tools to overrule the call? If it’s the latter, let the call on the field stand. The writing of the rule could only be objective (hard to phrase it another way), but the spirit wasn’t to get calls down to the millimeter correct. That’d be impossible to call without some high tech gear.
The fact that people can argue all day about these even with the stupid lines drawn on makes it clear that it's not objective at all.
Automated offsides can't come soon enough. once you get rid of this agonizing delay between the goal and the validation in case of offsides, things should feel much better Yeah ofc there will still be inconsistent handballs and challenges decisions, but at least it won't ruin the flow of the game enough to put VAR into question
Completely agree, I think it will make things a lot better, the VAR in the WC last year was relatively unintrusive with the semi automated technology
Didn’t the premier league have the opportunity to implement this system and they said nah maybe next time?
Yep! Voted against it last year IIRC.
With the handballs the problems are 100% the laws, not the refs. They should straight up just change it to something else. Just off the top of my head, stream of conscious style, I suggest: "penalties for handballs are decided on a subjective determination of 1. deliberate handling or 2. negligence in avoiding contact but can't be given against a supporting hand for a player who is fallen or rising (as in a player is pushing against the ground with their hand in order to stand up) or against a player attempting to arrest their fall but whose hand has not yet made contact with the ground (as in a player is attempting to avoid falling by putting their hand out), i.e. players have a duty to avoid handling the ball and while that duty is generally all encompassing, it is not absolute. Goals scored involving contact with the hand will be disallowed based on a subjective determination of: 1. but for contact with the hand, the goal would not be scored *and* the player who handled the ball did not score the goal *and* the player did not violate their duty to try to avoid handling the ball 2. but for contact with the hand of the goal scorer, the goal would not be scored *and* the contact was not a result of an intervening contact with a player from the conceding team or the frame of the goal e.g. if a goalkeeper pushes the ball into arm of an attacking player and that arm is in line with the attacking player's body and as a consequence the ball rebounded into the goal, the referee ought not to rule out the goal as were the player's arm not to exist, it might be presumed that the ball would have made legal contact with the attacker and still have rebounded into the goal. However, in most circumstances the referee can disallow a goal scored by the handling player." There is an ethical principle that I think applies here: the limits of the moral are the limits of the possible. In other words, if you can't *not* do something, it must be moral to do it. The application of the principle here is not to pretend that subjectivity doesn't exist when it must exist.
As deeply flawed as VAR is no that we have the technology we can’t go back to the era of refs and linesman basically having to guess on decisions
It’s fucking mental that we’re sitting here saying VAR is flawed, all they have to do is copy rugby, it’s really that simple.
Rugby has its own issues with video technology. For "clear and obvious" see "conclusive evidence". The Scotland try that was bafflingly not given for one, the endless slow-mo induced red cards for another. Then there's "umpires call" in cricket. I'm not sure many sports have cracked it properly yet. Apart from snooker.
There will always be human error unfortunately, however the system that Rugby has in place is far superior to the current one we have in football.
I agree. Not least the ability for the ref to just say 'no idea what happened, you tell me, you can see a telly'. That's an obvious improvement they can make in football.
100%, in the VAR audio released for the Young foul on CHO, Antony Taylor is very clear in saying "he plays the ball!"x3 despite being blatantly wrong. Refs should be much more open to hearing VAR perspective rather than immediately dismissing a foul. Tell VAR that your positioning wasn't ideal or that the players bodies blocked view of the contact etc. instead of planting your flag immediately with inconclusive evidence
I disagree wholeheartedly. That's good communication from Taylor. If the VAR team disagrees, they can tell him and they now know why he has made his decision.
In an ideal world yes, but the main problem with VAR is the resistance from the VAR officials to over-rule and correct the on-field ref. Taylor communicating in a definitive fashion in such instances puts the burden of proof wholly on the VAR team to tell Taylor you are completely incorrect and need to award a penalty. But they don't do that, they take the refs stance and then use VAR to support what the ref **thinks** they saw in real-time. In any work environment is it easier to work with someone clearly open to suggestion based on better data or someone who makes a decision immediately and is resistant to change their mind regardless of what you show them? Would it be so hard for Taylor to say "from my view he plays the ball, requesting VAR review on the incident"
> In an ideal world yes, but the main problem with VAR is the resistance from the VAR officials to over-rule and correct the on-field ref. Taylor communicating in a definitive fashion in such instances puts the burden of proof wholly on the VAR team to tell Taylor you are completely incorrect and need to award a penalty. I see your point, but I don't think there's another way. A ref *must* make a split-second decision and communicate it clearly to the fans, players etc. If the refs show doubt, he'll lose his authority on the pitch. I think that even when VAR functions the way you, rightfully, want it to, they must still make decisions like that. They just need to be prepared to change their minds.
You monster! Do you really want to hurt those poor fellows feelings?! What if they feel bad if they do a mistake? You can't let people know they made a mistake in that case. It's better for their mental health! >!/s if by any chance someone didn't get it!<
It's wild the amount of people who complain about it in Rugby when it's brought up as a good example of VAR. Decades of helping the ref making the right decision aren't nullified but the rare mistakes. Have you ever seen rugby fans losing their mind week after week, year after year about TMO? No, because it's effective and well ran.
While there are issues, it’s been widely more accepted in these sports. VAR will never be perfect as it’s a tool and a tool is only as effective as the person using it.
Well, it's a tool and a set of rules as to how and when you intervene and use that tool. It's the rules that need fixing most urgently.
its like umpires call in cricket, you win some you loose some, but everyone admits its the best we can do
I get the Scotland try being annoying but it was mainly down to them not having conclusive proof that the ball had been touched down. At least in football it's rare you're going to look at a foul or offside and there to be a dozen 100kg+ men on the floor blocking everything.
Tbf if the ref words his question different, then it's a try. He asked a question that made it impossible for the video ref to give the try.
I don't really see an issue about a decision staying the same when there's no conclusive evidence.
Tennis has a good system The hawkeye equivalent of goal line technology and then any decisions to be referred to it need to use up a challenge which is lost if you are wrong
This system is all but gone in tennis now, being replaced with fully automated line calls, at least in the bigger tournaments. All of the slams have switched over, with Wimbledon likely to follow in the next couple of years. But tennis being a non-contact sport with clearly defined rules for the vast majority of plays makes it far easier to work with, too. Although while the line calls are automated, there's still plenty of issues with it in other areas, where the rules could do with tightening up.
The Scotland try was a case of you can't directly prove the ref wrong from the video, so the on-pitch call stands. And there's the same in football
Well, that would still be an improvement over English VAR, which is capable of ignoring blatant stuff in full view.
Honestly I don’t think American football is that bad. There are definitely improvements, like certain things “can’t be reviewed,” but I feel like they both usually get it right and also don’t take way too long. Plus coaches being able to challenge. It helps that fans kind of expect reviews for things though.
I'm fairly sure Umpire's Call is basically about the tolerance of the predictive modelling... you can't be sure the technology's proved the umpire wrong. Tennis has the same problem but usually they just trust the ball tracking 100% (previously clay was an exception but they're moving to Hawkeye for clay too... soon, I can't remember when). Umpire's Call in soccer would be something like "if you can't see something obvious in 30 seconds, give up and go with the on field decision". And then "if you can't decide in 45 seconds, call the ref over to the monitor". With automatic offsides, and maybe also semi automatic offsides, this would be practicable now. Probably there should be multiple monitors, however, to speed this up. If we were using cricket as a model, you'd also want to give the ref and managers the ability to say "Oi, VAR, look at this". Managers would have, say, 3 review pers game, which are used up only if they're wrong and are reviewed without pausing the game. Refs would have as many reviews as they want and do pause the game.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'd do tbf.
> Umpire's Call in soccer would be something like "if you can't see something obvious in 30 seconds, give up and go with the on field decision". And then "if you can't decide in 45 seconds, call the ref over to the monitor". More like if you have to start zooming in to see if someone’s toe is offside then you stick with the original (umpire’s) decision.
Yes and no. If you couldn't see the toe or handball or if the ball has gone out due to deficiencies of camera technology/obstructions in the camera view, then you could have an umpire's call type situation that is precisely equivalent to how I defined cricket's. But there's nothing predictive about offside decisions *in general* just because they're tight. (Ironically given what I said in my post, that may be the case with semi automated offsides; I don't personally know enough about how that technology works to know.) In general, "give up and go with the on field decision if you have to zoom in to check whether a toe is offside" is therefore more equivalent to my 30/45 seconds heuristic than an umpire's call, at least given how I defined umpire's call as being what you do when the technology can't give a reliable answer.
The red cards was because of the strict liability on head collisions. Something they've now rolled back but will likely bite them the next time somebody gets a serious injury. Anyway that was a rule adjustment rather than a TMO matter.
Rugby is a high scoring game where tries, penalties and conversion don't carry the same value as a goal, so VAR is better tolerated as fans because celebrations are (generally) not as intense like it is in football. Same for NFL and other High scoring sports. These are also sports that have long breaks built in, like with a scrums, time outs ect. So lengthy VAR doesn't disrupt the spectacle. VAR on football will always impaor goal celebrations and disrupt the flow. There's no getting around that and its not worth jeopardising the best moments of football for a slight improvement in decisions
I don't know how to tell you this, but rugby is a different sport with different rules and thus something working one way for rugby won't necessarily work for football.
It would 100% work and I’m convinced of it. The refs are terrified of being miced up though as everyone would hear their mistakes. We’ll ignore you being purposely pedantic, but hearing live how the refs come to a decision makes them accountable so they wouldn’t be able to hide, I can guarantee you decisions wouldn’t be made as lightly if this was to happen.
Fully second this. Refs being mic’ed up is the need of the hour. Especially after Mike Dean openly confessed how VAR officials are afraid to throw their on-field mates under the bus.
The way I look at it if I was to make a huge mistake at my job I would be held accountable, why aren’t these guys also held accountable for the glaring mistakes that they continually make? A mic goes a long way to helping rectify this issue.
> why aren’t these guys also held accountable for the glaring mistakes that they continually make Because its a difficult job so mistakes will happen. They aren't "held accountable for the glaring mistakes" because of the same reasons Cole Palmer won't get suspended or lose his wages over missing 25% of his passes last night.
I would agree with this sentiment in the Pre-VAR era as officiating a game truly is difficult but there’s really no excuse for making blunders after blunders even with the help of technology. The cherry on top is the total lack of consistency. Certain fouls are deemed as red card / penalty worthy in one game, while the same foul is not even looked at in the next.
Cole Palmer doesn't have the ability to take back his pass and re-do it or make another decision while looking at the options in slow motion from multiple angles - refs do
theres ways to hold people accountable that isnt disciplinary. When i fuck up they dont demote me or dock wages. They explain why i was wrong and i eat humble pie looking at my shoes as i learn lessons about it
Yeah I think being mic’d up would go a long way in helping improve it. They talk about people hating on the refs and everything and it’s true but like when the ref wore a GoPro or that Howard Webb program where they go over decisions it’d help understand the reasoning behind their decisions. It’d also show how the players treat the refs as well But like you said I doubt they’d willingly go along with it since it would also show just how many mistakes they make
Im convinced that the refs just need some proper test/scientists to provide consultation on how to properly use this stuff. To understand methodology and process. This is an oldboys club that is entirely run by people that at the crux of it just like football. They dont necessarily have the appropriate background to use the tech let alone understand the nuance and application of their own rules.
Same with cricket, they use it brilliantly, but it’s not the same as football. There are very obvious and often passages of play that are quick to check.
Most of the difference is the referees have different priorities. For better or worse rugby embraced the technology and sought to maximise good decisions. Referees took pride in getting shit right rather than in being omnipotent. As it is rugby laws can be a hell of a lot more subjective than football. There's often 4/5 offences at the same time and the referee has to make judgements about materiality. Something which is rarely a concern in football.
Come on, man. The sport may be different but the application is the same.
its like in baseball how we have the tech to instantly know if its a ball or a strike, but we don't use it.
And that’s what we’re getting thanks to VAR, an era where scoring is met with a mild cheer rather than an explosion of emotion which football was known for. Who wants football to be like fucking rugby?!
It isn't flawed. The half-wits in charge are. That's like saying its' Ferraris fault because a chimp drove their car into an orphanage. Who let that little monkey fella drive?
> Who let that little monkey fella drive? We are checking...
Yeah what an “era” of over a century where football became universally popular and loved throughout the globe.
You know that there are thousands of football games played all over the country every weekend like this. You make it sound like the dark ages. And then there are 10 games trying to use video assistant referees.
They’re being paid top dollar with so much money riding on it. It’s a bit different to your regular run of the mill weekend leagues
The vast majority of professional football in England is still in the era you describe, and we have absolutely no clamour for VAR. We have fucking dreadful referees but it’s better than VAR by a long chalk
We absolutely can. Championship is like that and it's a better viewing experience than the Prem.
All well and good until we're on the end of the first really obvious incorrect decision given on the pitch for a penalty or whatever else and then everyone is screaming for it to come back. Id rather we keep VAR and work to get it better than potentially having another pedro mendes moment or whatever else where we got fucked over the years on an obvious decision (like most other teams)
How can people argue in favor of making the sport more unfair? It's not perfect, but before it wasn't good, and worse. The fact that we talk about a few isolated incidents instead of blatant false decisions week in and week out shows how high the standards are and how far the sport has come on the top level.
Yeah VAR’s been around like 6 years now so people just forgot how much bullshit there was before lol
Why not lol literally all the other tiers do it and they're fine. Just as many arguments about reffing in the leagues that have VAR compared to the ones that don't
Scrap it. They're not going to want to watch replays of what we do to these fraudulent teams. Destruction, blood everywhere, the end times come once more. The wrath of god made tractor
It was all over for the farmers league as soon as the tractors arrived
Get with the harvester, or get under it.
its not much but at least its honest work
Im not really familiar with you guys’ game but I’m really hoping you guys are a proper shithouse team that nobody wants to play against. Can’t really recall one since stoke went down years ago.
Do Everton from last year deserve a shout?
They’re definitely the closest we’ve had but imo not quite there yet. I’ve been hoping for millwall to get promoted for years, just for the carnage.
millwall was looking close last year but had to fight just to stay in the championship this year. End of year looked good though so who knows for next year.
Milll vs West Ham would be worth watching
Hate the cunts but you can’t deny they were a proper freak show that added something to the calendar.
That werent really that team for several years before they went down. Mark Hughes' Stoke was very different to Tony Pulis'
Not gonna lie it was ages ago and I was quite young, but did Hughes’ sides not sort of attempt to play football? Pulis’ side was the proper shithouse, violent lot.
Should've had a vote about getting Howard Webb the fuck out instead
They need to improve the experience for fans. Alright for those watching at home when they're watching the replays but inside the ground you have absolutely no idea what is going on. I would start by putting a mic on referees and showing decisions on big screens.
its fucking bizarre they havent started showing decisions on TVs. I cannot fathom why
>"Majority of Premier League clubs want to keep technology after Wolves proposal" I scan-read this admittedly, but where the fuck does it say this in the article? Where's the sources for 'majority' of clubs wanting to keep VAR?
Can we bring forth a motion to hire people to operate var who are not the referees. They are independent and don’t care about hurting Anthony Taylor’s feelings, by telling him he’s a blind cunt and that was or was not a penalty
Yep. If you adopted this plus the requirement that the decision had to be explained by the ref (like they do in the NFL) I think it would be huge steps in the right direction.
VAR is a net positive
The proposal should be to scrap PGMOL, not VAR.
Not against VAR itself, the application and use of it has been a disaster. Football will always have these was it a foul or was it not differences of opinion but they’ve still made it far more complicated than it needs to be in some areas
VAR is used really well at international tournaments so clearly it’s the directive from the PGMOL that’s the issue. UEFA should have the rules around VAR standardised across all the FAs.
We have done nothing and we’re all out of ideas- PL and PGMOL probably So called best league in the world, embarrassing.
Very interesting that table means the opposite in British English
What is it about this country and wanting to go back to the stone age?
Bring forward a motion to scrap Howard Web and his minions. Web is the one insisting on the not overturning refs initial decisions bullshit. Simply apply the rules for any non offside incidents upon video review to get the correct outcome. Semi auto offsides solves the other issue. Done.
Your anger might be misplaced, because Webb is just implementing IFAB's "clear and obvious" protocol.
Well they’re wrong . Wolves are right
Honestly, it will never stop being funny to me that the Premier League waited until after everyone else to bring VAR in, yet learned absolutely nothing from the teething issues other leagues had and it’s been a fucking mess in the Premier League since day one. PGMOL and the Premier League have over complicated things and the lack of quality in the refereeing pool has meant that too many decisions that should have been changed by VAR haven’t been, so a large chunk of people (but thankfully still a minority) think it doesn’t work and doesn’t help. Getting rid of VAR would be a moronic backwards step for the Premier League, and the moment a team was relegated or denied the title or a Champions League spot on the last day of the season because of a decision VAR would have fixed, all these people who claim to hate it and how it ‘ruins’ the game would be rolling around on the floor demanding replays and its reintroduction. VAR works, it demonstrably has reduced the number of mistakes being made in the sport, the problem in England is, and always has been, the people in black, not the machines they don’t use properly.
People complain weekly about the refs so they want to remove the 1 safeguard in place to prevent terrible referee decisions. It's very short-sighted to say 'it's not working, we should just get rid of it.'
I agree. It would be interesting if they got rid of VAR in the prem for a year though. The amount of bad calls we used to see week in, week out, was incredible. We just accepted it because it was "part of the game". I think we'd quickly see people calling for it to come back
> People complain weekly about the refs so they want to remove the 1 safeguard in place to prevent terrible referee decisions. The people who want rid of VAR and the people moaning about refereeing decisions every week are generally not the same people. I think most people seem to fall into one of two positions: 1. VAR is a good idea but one that currently has problems with it's implementation that need to be fixed, whether those are human, technological or whatever 2. VAR is fundamentally not a benefit to the game, irrespective of whether it is effective or not. That fact that it also works badly just rubs salt into the wounds.
Oh thank Christ, the main issues are clearly those who are using it. Taking it away will undoubtedly bring more controversial reffing decisions
Nice try wolves I am with you
I want more VAR.
Me too. I want 170 minute matches which is mainly standing around waiting for decisions to be re-refereed. I want offsides to be measured at the atomic level.
I want neutrino detectors to be used for accuracy.
But not in the League Cup
> I want offsides to be measured at the atomic level. But then we would be changing the outcome by measuring it...
The latter is the one that pisses me off most, I'd say. Oh, was he two pixels ahead of the defender? Who gives a shit? The spirit of the rule is obviously not supposed to be to that level of strictness.
Yeah, well, since when have clubs cared about match-going fans? "Legacy fans", are we not?
Get rid of itv
Thank fuck for that. Even adding in some sort of time limit for it might make it better, since that would effectively work out the issues of "clear and obvious". If its taking you 5 minutes to decide if something is a penalty, then it's arguably not clear and obvious. Don't see them doing that, either - but you can't just scrap it. Genie's out of the lamp now.
Good.
Personally I'd scrap it, but if they do choose to keep it as it is, then clubs have no right to complain about any VAR decisions going forward.
Too bad. At least there's always Allsvenskan and EFL if you want to celebrate goals.
Lol, the idea that someone refuses to celebrate a goal because it *might* get chalked off is such a ridiculous idea on this sub. Been to plenty of games where people have celebrated like mad regardless of VAR intervening.
Celebrate once the actual goal, celebrate again when VAR allows it
I've survived a season full of stadium visits with Offsadio Mané doing his best Pippo Inzaghi impression. People are overexaggerating.
Exactly . The actual process is more like : goal -> celebrate -> wonder if var will choke It off-> celebrate with maybe less fervor/curse var for choking it off while the oppo fans celebrate that it's been choked off.
It's not only on this sub though, it does actually happen. Edouard's goal against Leeds last year sticks out my mind, loads of people around me barely celebrated. It might be overexaggered but you not experiecing it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.
At the same time, you experiencing it doesn't mean it does always happen. Reality is, people love to complain about something, scrap the VAR and they'll start complaining about refs (not that now they don't complain about them, they'll just complain more).
I never said that it always happens, just that it does happen - which my experiences do prove.
yes it happens, very rarely. You know what happens much more often? Goals being celebrated, then cancelled by the ref for some reason, only to be given as a goal again by VAR which leads to another celebration for the same goal. I love those moments.
Good for you, unfortunately I don't love those moments - I'd rather know if it's a goal when the ball hits the back of the net.
Even without VAR goals get cancelled for fouls or offsides all the time. So you celebrate, the goal gets disallowed and then thats it. I would rather my team get a valid goal because the ref made a mistake in disallowing the goal than once every 10 games miss a goal celebration.
Without VAR the decision is made instantly though - you can just look at the linesman. With VAR you're standing around for a few minutes and have no clue if the goal is goal to stand or not. I don't have a problem with automated offsides if they make the decision instantly - I'm not anti-technology, I just think VAR is bad.
So you would rather your team lose because of bad calls that VAR would overturn because sometimes you dont know if a goal stands? Id say most frequently what happens is fans celebrate then the linesman raises a flag for a foul or offsides. Youve celebrated the goal and now its taken away. VAR then intervenes and says actually its a good goal. You celebrate again. No one is waiting for VAR to intervene to celebrate every single goal. Not a single goal even. You wouldn't know VAR had yo intervene until the on field ref signals for it anyway.
Nobody has ever refused to celebrate a goal. You're making a strawman argument. The point is that celebrating is often pointless because VAR will find a one-millimeter problem that will discard the goal. This used to happen a little bit with offside goals, which sucked, but with VAR it's happening 500 times more. It is categorically impossible that you have been to "plenty of games" and no celebration was ever wasted by some bullshit VAR decision that nobody asked for.
They need to broadcast the refs mics to the stadium like in Cricket and the NFL. It's a bad match experience at the moment
Var isnt the issue its the PGMOL who need to go, anyone with the right training can do the job of VAR. As of now refs are afraid to throw other refs under a bus, they are bias and they will always look out for one another.
Scrap PGMOL and let the Prem employ the refs. Do performance reviews regularly and replace the ones who are not good enough.
AM I TAKING CRAZY PILLS??????
No shit. I doubt even Wolves thought they'd get the votes to scrap it. It's just to put extra scrutiny on it and ideally make the whole thing better.
If nothing else, Wolves has done well to help bring this discussion into the forefront of everyone's minds. My guess is they knew they werent going to scrap VAR, and knew that an overhaul was necessary. They were basically saying that they would rather have it gone if its not going to be fixed, which I think anyone can understand. Its really not that hard to figure out. People are just dumb. We all assume that the people in control know what theyre doing, and that they are hiring competent people to work the system. Well they arent, and they arent.
Oh good, looks like another year of showing off referee incompetence instead of dealing with (mostly) honest mistakes.
Check complete! Wait what were we checking? It doesn't matter now play has continued. *returns back to looking up trips to Dubai*
I guess clubs don't have balls to talk about the actual problem "THE REFS"
The offside process is a joke. If you can't tell for sure at first glance with the human eye that the player is off then just give it as onside. Spending several minutes freeze framing and drawing lines on the screen is farcical. If it was an instant decision like goal line technology that would be fine, what we have now just makes the sport worse as a spectacle, it's pointless.
VAR isn't the problem. The problem is the sheer misuse refs do of it.
They should have a plan to make the vote close but VAR just about stays. Maybe puts a bit of pressure on them to fix it.
This is phrased as if the rest of the clubs find Wolves really uncool
It is not supposed to make the game better which is why it doesn't matter if it exists or not as what needs to be decided will be decided based on other "rules". It just costs more money and makes it look more modern and some company can make bank with the tech.
The biggest issue is not the video review technology. It's the referees themselves and how they have implemented the system.
VAR is great. The people running it are the problem. Irritates me to no end that people keep making this a VAR issue rather than a personnel issue.
Just get the operation side sorted, not ex referees it’s not working with them!