I have said this before but I rather feel like England in particular is trying it’s best to stuff up the usage of VAR Yes there were a few daft high profile misuses across the globe but for me the previous World Cup - use of VAR was executed perfectly Very little fuss Couple of high profile mistakes but generally much better. No idea if you remember but the one I always remember was the Sterling ‘offside’ against city that sort of decision was very common place - the game has got very quick. Not saying VAR was the correct solution but it needed something All VAR has done for me is highlighted the craziness in the rules, I believe when used correctly VAR could be useful The refs in this country appear afraid to criticise each other and that is an issue for me. I understood that poor decisions were part of the game but some were just ridiculous Not sure we will ever agree but I agree that atm because of how we use it it’s not working For example Diving and Making a back for me should absolutely be jumped on imho
I'm older than most I play footy with nowadays and can even see this change in attitude there, have done for some time actually. I've not played Sunday's for about 5-6yrs now but the number of players that dived or feigned injury was ridiculous. I grew up in a time when you'd have got booted by everyone after doing either of those things; they showed weakness!!!
I don't actually think we're far apart in our opinions, it's just that we seem to be coming to it from a different angle. My point is that VAR is a technological tool, but people seem to talk about it as though it is an entity in itself. VAR doesn't make decisions, people do, so those decisions will always be subject to the limitations of those people. I think the expectations were far too high, it was going to "eliminate incorrect decisions" and make the game fairer. It can't do that because the people making the decisions are just as fallible as they ever were. You know that on this forum we can all look at various incidents and have differing opinions on them, so can we really expect another set of people to be perfectly consistent in theirs?
Having 3 referees review the footage and come to a decision - which would have addressed at least any bias that was being used in decision making - was not what we ended up with. As has been mentioned, VAR referees are scared to overrule the onfield ref and that's ridiculous. Actually the onfield ref is scared to overrule himself. Remember Kavanagh being sent to the monitor only to walk up to it and immediately turn around and stay with his original decision? He, of all the referees, shows an arrogance and at times, vindictiveness, which has no part in the game. We need a much higher standard of referee. If they don't want to upset each other over VAR decisions then maybe it would be a good idea to train up special VAR operators who aren't referees and have no allegiance to them. It's a cold, hard system that doesn't even require you to understand football other than the rules that apply to the aspects of the game that VAR is required to look at.
Well, although I don't like VAR at all I'm resigned to the fact that we're stuck with it, so anything that improves - and streamlines - the performance of the system would be welcome. I think a review of the offside rule should be one thing, because the lengthy scrutiny to see whether a player is off by his eyelashes is just ridiculous. It often seems to me that they're trying too hard to find a reason to rule a goal out, and that's not the spirit of the game, imo.
This would be a good idea, the referees seem a bit boys clubish at the minute, protecting each others backs. A separate division just for var would be useful, taken out of the public eye, with no pressure of rhe crowd, players or managers. Everyone understands that some descions are subjective, but I don't think it's those descions that piss people off, it's the blatently wrong calls, which are baffling considering they are being viewed multiple times.
You say that, but then the var ref goes and tells the on field ref that he ****ed up in the Liverpool palace game and it should be a pen when it clearly wasn’t. And we see so often the var ref direct them to go look and they always change their mind so I don’t think they always try and back up the on field decision as we’ve seen some contentious ones been changed. I honestly just think the referees aren’t very good a lot of the time plus you have differences of opinions where some are more lenient than others. Just look how many cards are fished out by some refs compared to Mike Dean for example. They have different tolerances for fouls yellows and reds and then you get 2 of them to ref a game and your going to end up with conflicting decisions.
Honestly think they should be hiring specific var officials who works with certain referees. In same way you have the same linesman and ref team, why not the same var official. That way they all work together on regular bases, they learn what they think is and isn’t a foul or red etc. they don’t feel like they’re then being undermined by another referee who may take the big game away from them if they cock up etc
