With the continuing saga of inept officials, bizarre, overlong decisions, confusing laws and inconclusive evidence week in, week out, thought we should have a central thread to cover the topic. There were a few instances last weekend, notably the 'penalty' for Newcastle against Wolves that should have been overturned. But I will start closer to home: the Ayew handball. The on field officials saw nothing and awarded the goal. VAR reviewed - for nearly 4 fecking minutes! - and it was quite clear from at least one angle that the ball had hit Ayew's arm and dropped nicely for him to volley the ball in. Eventually the goal was given, supposedly because there was 'no clear and obvious error'. Now, my understanding is that any handball in this scenario is (in criminal law terms) an absolute offence. If it hits the arm, deliberate or not, then the goal should not stand. VAR shouldn't even refer the matter back to the ref to review on monitor. So... what was the decision based on?
Handballs, Fouls, Dives, are subjective decisions. As the Ayew incident proves, it doesn't matter how long you look at the replay of the 'goal' it will still end up a subjective decision. You might just as well stick with the subjective decision of the referee because all VAR does is delay the decision, spoil the flow of the game and the celebration of a goal. Slow motion also distorts the incident and often makes an accident look deliberate. In other words it creates another level of doubt. More trouble and doubt is created by using referees to 'judge' referees. They are always going to support their mates and avoid any decision that makes the ref look bad. What they should do IMO is use VAR only for line decisions. Did the ball cross the goal line and is the ball out of play. Clear cut with no 'opinions' required. I'm not even sure about using it for offsides because at the moment they make decisions that are so close that once again it becomes subjective. How do they measure when the pass left the boot? If you are going to use millimetres to judge the player being offside or not then millimetres also count at the supply end. I'm not sure I have seen much scrutiny of that part. Of course it's unlikely they will stop VAR now so they need to seriously review how they use it and who monitors it because at present it just provides more chat for the media without improving the game. In the end 'The Money' decides in football now and the money is the media.
The Ayew handball was not a subjective decision...it either touched his hand or it didn't and if it touched his hand then the goal must be disallowed. The issue wasn't subjectivity...it was lack of evidence. Most of the other subjective decisions could be eliminated by writing the Laws more clearly. On Offside it is again not subjective...the issue is again lack of evidence caused by uncertainty in measurement exacerbated by lack of any published information of how such uncertainties are dealt with in the VAR process. I couldn't care less about VAR delays. The amount of time that the game is delayed by VAR is dwarfed by that due to deliberate time wasting and cheating, not to mention the ridiculous process for substitutions.
The point is, whether it touched his hand or not is not clear because some think it did and others think it didn't that makes the decision subjective. If it was definitive VAR would not be an issue and would not be needed.
There is one clear view showing the ball hitting the arm and deviating it's path. That shouldn't require subjective assessment. Oh well..onto next week and the next controversy
It's perfectly possible that it touched his arm in a place which was obscured from the view of all the onfield officials but which was clear from the camera coverage. Thus VAR is certainly required to get non subjective decisions right. Unfortunately it is also possible that none of the cameras gives a clear view either. Then the goal stands. That's a feature, not a bug. What shouldn't be happening is the VAR making a subjective decision on whether there is sufficient evidence that the ball touched the arm. What should be there is a hawkeye type system that models the ball and arm movements from all the camera angles and gives a ruling on whether the ball touched the arm. There will be some uncertainty if there is only a slight touch so the system needs a probability floor to be built in.
The ball - in my opinion - hit Ayew’s hand but in situations like this, even though it obviously went against us, I think it’s right to award the goal (even though the VAR officials weren’t awarding the goal through common sense, they’re just useless at their jobs). In situations where the contact of the ball is so minimal it won’t alter the trajectory of the ball, give the damn benefit of the doubt, man. He clearly didn’t purposely hand ball it, nor as I said did the ball move in a manner that would’ve been any different had it not hit his hand, so the goal should just stand purely on the basis of “common sense”. I hate how common sense/ benefit of the doubt isn’t applied in some manner to rulings. Similar should apply to offsides that need more than 15-20 seconds to determine a decision, if it’s so close to the point where the VAR lines can’t easily determine if the player is off or not, give the damn goal, the whole sport is based around goals, stop doing your best to prevent them. Taking 2-3 minutes to work out if a player’s toe is a millimetre offside is killing the enjoyment, especially for fans inside the stadium whose celebrations are abruptly ruined. But on top of what I’ve said, **** VAR
Sky's ref watch this week has decided that our objectively wrong decision wasn't worth mentioning! https://www.skysports.com/football/...rmer-premier-league-official-dermot-gallagher Some awful decisions this week.
As someone who predicted 2-1 in Spurfs league, I think it was fine. Didn't at the time, but I am cool with it.
The Newcastle " penalty " comes under the Gerrard penalty from years back where the same scenario happend , defender swung at the ball but pulled out causing saint Gerrard to jump in the air to avoid the non existent swinging boot ,penalty given because of the intent ,much the same as the Newcastle pen Saturday, wrong wrong wrong
I'm going to go for the Gerrard dive against Sheffield United as my guess. The officials claimed that the defender made him do it or something. The link won't work, but it's the top video result for "sheffield united 1-1 liverpool" on Google. That's the 2006/07 away dive against Sheffield United, as he also did it in the home fixture!
However the decision was GOAL and that could not be made if it was thought by VAR that it had hit his hand. Therefore they decided it did not hit his hand, others thought it did. THAT's SUBJECTIVE.
Is a hawkeye possible? In cricket there is a fixed point (The Stumps) there is no equivalent in football.
In the case of the Chelsea defence, they must be the most static thing on the pitch after the goal posts atm
It objectively hit his arm. It changed direction. Ayew told the ref that it it his arm. He was indicating that his arm was by his side, so it couldn't be handball. Another player that doesn't know the rules.
Is this for real? FFS! One of the only rules that is clear and unambiguous and the fecking ref doesn't know the rules!
If you have many cameras then you can calculate to good accuracy many times a second where the ball is so you should be able to see a deviation every time it touches something.
The laws of the game are more of an issue than VAR, simply because you can’t expect consistent and confident enforcement of laws which are badly drafted and often ambiguous. The laws on tackling, offside and handball are all as clear as mud. The only way in which technology has enhanced the game is to avoid another Mendes. And that was a simple issue once the technology was available.
