Referees/VAR in the Premier League

[Vegan Kel]

It's frustrating that something so simple to implement is proving so difficult for these clowns to get right. Where do they get them from?

[Batard]

6 minutes ago, Vegan Kel said:

It's frustrating that something so simple to implement is proving so difficult for these clowns to get right. Where do they get them from?

The application of VAR has been fucking awful. At this rate we may as well remove humans from officiating entirely!

[Guest]

I said it 2 years ago but did you honestly think with how corrupt the federations are that VAR would be "properly" implemented?

It wasn't going to happen and it never will just for that reason alone. The people in charge are incompetent and this was the most predictable outcome.

[Dan+]

I'm amazed how many people absolve VAR of any blame with that new handball rule - it's literally been changed to supplement VAR, and in doing so has lost all common sense.

[Dan+]

18 minutes ago, Batard said:

The application of VAR has been fucking awful. At this rate we may as well remove humans from officiating entirely!

Funnily enough I think you're onto something there. VAR makes officials in danger of becoming obsolete and it's the officials themselves in control of it. They're in a slightly lose/lose position here. If they work it properly then it's the first step towards referees going full stop.

[Stan]

12 minutes ago, Dan said:

I'm amazed how many people absolve VAR of any blame with that new handball rule - it's literally been changed to supplement VAR, and in doing so has lost all common sense.

But the handball rule was totally ambiguous beforehand. 

At least this way any contact with the arm, intentional or not, is now not left to interpretation any more.

I'm pretty sure so many people were confused or at a loss as to what constituted handball before the latest rule change. Now that it gets cleared up by removing the 'intent' angle, they still can't please everyone?

I'm amazed how many people still point the finger at VAR despite a beneficial rule change. VAR is the ultimate scapegoat. 

[Machado]

29 minutes ago, Grizzly21 said:

I said it 2 years ago but did you honestly think with how corrupt the federations are that VAR would be "properly" implemented?

It wasn't going to happen and it never will just for that reason alone. The people in charge are incompetent and this was the most predictable outcome.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

According to football fans, everyone who gets to the top of officiating, law making or is in charge of any important office work that is related to football, is both corrupt and incompetent. Fascinating.

[RandoEFC+]

VAR will never replace match officials. Never ever ever.

It looks so far as if there is some hypersensitivity that officials have when it comes to overruling the match referee in the Premier League. The "clear and obvious" thing is a problem. I certainly seem to have a different interpretation of what's clear and obvious than the officials because we've seen lots of decisions not overturned which looked pretty clear and obviously wrong to me.

This is an overriding issue with referees that completely outdates VAR. "The referee's word is final". Why? Referees are not robots, they are human beings, and there's nothing wrong with admitting a mistake. The 22 players around them make mistakes while millions watch on all the time and have to embrace it and move on. I understand that abuse of officials is a big issue in this country from grass roots to Premier League, but it doesn't help to put referees in this glass cage because it makes them come off as above reproach and maybe even arrogant through no fault of their own.

In rugby the referees wear microphones so that the crowd can hear them explain decisions. In tennis you have umpires and line judges who get overruled by Hawkeye all the time, they dont burst into flames and they certainly haven't found themselves out of a job because of technology, and that's in a sport where you could quite easily get rid of all line judges and set Hawkeye up to just set a small alarm off every time a ball lands outside the court like the referee's watch for goal line technology. Football is a sport of a million grey areas so I can't see in any way how VAR should be a threat to referees.

The implementation in the Premier League has indeed been controversial at best so far. However, the technology is not the problem, it simply can't be. The next step seems to be to change the clear and obvious thing. Their other problem is trying to use VAR to make black and white decisions, like with the handball rule that caught City out against Spurs. Football will never be black and white and trying to make it so is a waste of VAR. Judgement calls will always be necessary, and VAR should only be used to get a closer look from different angles if necessary. They also need to be braver about overruling the match officials in the stadium. Unless there's a massive ego culture amongst top referees that I'm not aware of, I can't imagine a referee being too upset about someone with a load of extra camera angles making a "better" decision than them. I don't imagine someone pig-headed enough to get annoyed or insecure that someone with more resources than them is overruling their split second decision has the self-awareness of professionalism to end up anywhere near refereeing a top flight match in the first place.

Those are my key takeaways from what is still only four weekends into this huge change to the sport.

[Dan+]

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

But the handball rule was totally ambiguous beforehand. 

At least this way any contact with the arm, intentional or not, is now not left to interpretation any more.

I'm pretty sure so many people were confused or at a loss as to what constituted handball before the latest rule change. Now that it gets cleared up by removing the 'intent' angle, they still can't please everyone?

I'm amazed how many people still point the finger at VAR despite a beneficial rule change. VAR is the ultimate scapegoat. 

The real way I think around sorting out the farce around handball is to show replays at real time. Show these other angles but show them at real time so that you can appreciate what's actually happened. Everything looks far worse if it's slowed down.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Machado said:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

According to football fans, everyone who gets to the top of officiating, law making or is in charge of any important office work that is related to football, is both corrupt and incompetent. Fascinating.

So are you saying they aren't?

[Cicero]

2 minutes ago, Grizzly21 said:

So are you saying they aren't?

That’s not an argument. 

It isn’t Machado’s job to prove them innocent. That’s not how this works. 

[Guest]

Just now, Cicero said:

That’s not an argument. 

It isn’t Machado’s job to prove them innocent. That’s not how this works. 

There have been scandals within FIFA, UEFA and CONMEBOL not too long ago from now. Whether its the whole Qatar World Cup issue or back in 2015 (I think) where FIFA were investigated by authorities for corruption. To say the people in charge are not corrupt or incompetent is laughable when there is blatant proof of the situation.

[Batard]

18 hours ago, Dan said:

Funnily enough I think you're onto something there. VAR makes officials in danger of becoming obsolete and it's the officials themselves in control of it. They're in a slightly lose/lose position here. If they work it properly then it's the first step towards referees going full stop.

VAR is effectively becoming threshold selective human error. That's not acceptable. If it's use is to eliminate clear infractions, that's not occuring. Fannying around with millimetres on an offside but not giving penalties when they should be, doesn't help the image of VAR.

[Bluewolf]

Whats not helping matters is that the Referees have been told to stay away from the match side monitors as much as possible in an effort to keep the flow of the game going and been asked to put their trust in VAR.. 

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, Batard said:

VAR is effectively becoming threshold selective human error. That's not acceptable. If it's use is to eliminate clear infractions, that's not occuring. Fannying around with millimetres on an offside but not giving penalties when they should be, doesn't help the image of VAR.

To be fair though the millimetres on offsides is done because they have the technology to do it very accurately. It's not a case of being pedantic it is very black and white

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

Whats not helping matters is that the Referees have been told to stay away from the match side monitors as much as possible in an effort to keep the flow of the game going and been asked to put their trust in VAR.. 

Do they have monitors in the premier League?

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Do they have monitors in the premier League?

Yea mate they do.. 

However, the Premier League have enforced some of their own criteria with a view to minimising disruption to the flow of the game. Firstly, referees have been told to avoid on-pitch reviews at the pitch-side screen whenever possible. These types of review are known to cause the longest delays. Instead, on-pitch referees have been told to trust the advice they are given by VAR. 

There has also been a pledge from former referee Neil Swarbrick, the man leading VAR's implementation in the Premier League, to stick to a 'higher threshold' for reviewing decisions and only intervene in the case of 'clear and obvious' errors (does not apply to offsides, remember). 

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Bluewolf

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

Yea mate they do.. 

However, the Premier League have enforced some of their own criteria with a view to minimising disruption to the flow of the game. Firstly, referees have been told to avoid on-pitch reviews at the pitch-side screen whenever possible. These types of review are known to cause the longest delays. Instead, on-pitch referees have been told to trust the advice they are given by VAR. 

There has also been a pledge from former referee Neil Swarbrick, the man leading VAR's implementation in the Premier League, to stick to a 'higher threshold' for reviewing decisions and only intervene in the case of 'clear and obvious' errors (does not apply to offsides, remember). 

 

The thing is though penalties are the main thing when it would be better for the ref to have a look himself. I think some of the decisions they should look at. I think they should say to the ref that's it's not clear and obvious you have made a mistake but it's quite contentious maybe you should look at it. Then the referee can look at it and decide what is more likely. 

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, Gunnersauraus said:

The thing is though penalties are the main thing when it would be better for the ref to have a look himself. I think some of the decisions they should look at. I think they should say to the ref that's it's not clear and obvious you have made a mistake but it's quite contentious maybe you should look at it. Then the referee can look at it and decide what is more likely. 

Personally I think anything that is available should be used, It's either in ( in which case use it ) or it's not! sounds to me like they are cherry picking what they do and don't want to use and what rules apply and when.. It's one or the other.

@RandoEFC covered this a while back and I agreed with him that when it comes to the handball situation for example much as though some can seem daft, that the simple rule is if it touches or comes off your arm/hand regardless of where your arm/hand is or if it was accidental or not then a goal should be ruled out or a penalty given. At least this way it's crystal clear for all... annoying as fuck obviously if it was totally accidental but at least the rule is clear and it applies to all without fail so that makes the judgement fair even if we don't agree with it. 

VAR should be advising the ref on anything he may have missed or where his call was on instinct perhaps incorrect and for that he should be using the pitch side monitor to put right any error in judgement, We keep giving refs a hard time but then they have the ability to improve their decision making and then it promptly gets taken out of their hands it would seem... We are going to have to allow this first season proper to gauge if it has been more a success or a failure as far as the fans and decisions are concerned.. Either way we will not be happy, we moan if someone gets away with a blatant handball for example and because they are not reviewing other fouls/incidents, and yet we don't want to have to wait for VAR to make a decision because we feel it slows the game down even though we demand justice.. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bluewolf said:

Personally I think anything that is available should be used, It's either in ( in which case use it ) or it's not! sounds to me like they are cherry picking what they do and don't want to use and what rules apply and when.. It's one or the other.

@RandoEFC covered this a while back and I agreed with him that when it comes to the handball situation for example much as though some can seem daft, that the simple rule is if it touches or comes off your arm/hand regardless of where your arm/hand is or if it was accidental or not then a goal should be ruled out or a penalty given. At least this way it's crystal clear for all... annoying as fuck obviously if it was totally accidental but at least the rule is clear and it applies to all without fail so that makes the judgement fair even if we don't agree with it. 

VAR should be advising the ref on anything he may have missed or where his call was on instinct perhaps incorrect and for that he should be using the pitch side monitor to put right any error in judgement, We keep giving refs a hard time but then they have the ability to improve their decision making and then it promptly gets taken out of their hands it would seem... We are going to have to allow this first season proper to gauge if it has been more a success or a failure as far as the fans and decisions are concerned.. Either way we will not be happy, we moan if someone gets away with a blatant handball for example and because they are not reviewing other fouls/incidents, and yet we don't want to have to wait for VAR to make a decision because we feel it slows the game down even though we demand justice.. 

I don't think you get a penalty for accidental handball. But if you score a goal and it hits your hand it is ruled out regardless of intent. Personally never got the intentional handball rule. Players sometimes have their arms out to far and it hits them but very rarely is it intentional.

[Guest]

Out of interest @Grizzly21 are you against goal line technology? Would you be ok with var if it was only used for red cards and offsides which would hardly affect the flow of the game?

[LFCMadLad]

Please just go back to normal football with the odd refereeing error. Much better than all this bollocks, still with refereeing errors. 

VAR is essentially just another human opinion anyway. Fuck it off.

[LFCMadLad]

1 minute ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Out of interest @Grizzly21 are you against goal line technology? Would you be ok with var if it was only used for red cards and offsides which would hardly affect the flow of the game?

Goal line technology is fine, works perfectly. 

VAR still fuck up red card decisions.

 

[Burning Gold]

1 hour ago, Gunnersauraus said:

The thing is though penalties are the main thing when it would be better for the ref to have a look himself. I think some of the decisions they should look at. I think they should say to the ref that's it's not clear and obvious you have made a mistake but it's quite contentious maybe you should look at it. Then the referee can look at it and decide what is more likely. 

I'm with you on this. If anyone watched the Man United game on the weekend, they would've seen the explanation of how VAR works at the moment with contact fouls. Basically, the on-field referee tells the video assistant referee what he thinks has happened, and the VAR will only overturn the decision if the pictures don't match the referee's account. But I guarantee the description is getting lost in translation every time. Even if a referee is mistaken on what's happened, there's no way to describe an incident with enough precision to allow the VAR to definitively decide he's got it wrong as opposed to just having a different interpretation of the incredibly vague rules.

Only the on-field referee genuinely knows what he thinks has happened, so only he can say whether he's got that wrong (we'll save the chat about what the rules are and whether they're being correctly applied for another day). Let the referees review their own decisions live and I guarantee we'll see a lot more overturned. Obviously keep having their performances independently assessed afterwards

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, Gunnersauraus said:

I don't think you get a penalty for accidental handball. But if you score a goal and it hits your hand it is ruled out regardless of intent. Personally never got the intentional handball rule. Players sometimes have their arms out to far and it hits them but very rarely is it intentional.

Well the rules state that a penalty can be given if the hand or arm is beyond the natural silhouette of the body 'regardless of intent'  In the City v Spurs game a goal was ruled out for 'accidental handball' and I say handball, it wasn't even that was it.. but you can't rule a goal out for that if the accidental or unintentional handball rule applies surely??? this is the horrible grey area we are talking about here! make it clear, if it touches the hand or arm regardless of intent it's either a penalty or disallowed goal...