You can boil it down to this: VAR was brought in to ensure that refereeing mistakes do not happen. VAR does not ensure that refereeing mistakes do not happen. The justification arguments now seem to be around the fact that less mistakes happen under VAR. You have to balance that against the fact that VAR has introduced a level of absurd pedantry into the game (ridiculous interpretations of the handball rule, measuring offsides in millimetres), as well as the soul destroying breaks in the game and decide whether VAR has improved or worsened the game overall. FWIW I'm definitely in the latter camp.
Im in the latter camp too. I’d rather an imperfect game than a game trying to be perfect being imperfect.
I would actually keep VAR for offsides, they are relatively mechanistic to judge although they do seem to take an age. I'd bin it for fouls, handballs, penalties and all the other stuff though, they are pure matters of judgement. Yes that means a few poor decisions will creep in and a few dives will yield penalties - but as Ernie suggests, that's happening anyway with VAR. Problem is, the cost of installing and staffing VAR is such that having it just to determine 3-4 tight offside calls per match is probably prohibitive. What a mess. Just ****can it.
Wonder why they have never considered more referees or linesmen? A ref in each half, two linesmen each side. Saying that many times something happens right in front of a linesman and they don't react seemingly leaving it to the referee to make the decision.
They aren’t even called linesmen anymore, they are called referee’s assistants, but they do **** all assisting, just wait for the ref to make a decision and then wave a flag.
VAR should be so simple. It's only to override clear and obvious errors therefore there should be a time limit if VAR can't make a decision in the time limit then it isn't clear and obvious and you stuck with the on field decision if if technical not right
UEFA did do that for a bit. With those extra officials behind the goal line. Supposedly it was going to sort all the grappling at set pieces that players have always got away with, and which there was a lot of talk about at the time. Of course what actually happened is they weren't empowered to do anything, basically just stood there for 90 minutes, the grapplers still got away with it and still do to this day, and people have largely stopped caring about it. Always seems like football comes up with needlessly complicated solutions that totally miss the point of the problem they were supposed to solve. Sin bins to deal with dissent, when punishments for that already exist but aren't enforced, seems like another example of this.
This doesn't change my opinion, I'd still bin VAR, but... There should be something similar to Umpire's Call in Cricket. (Referee's call, I guess). For example, team scores a goal, ref gives it, VAR has a quick check (whilst the celebrations are ongoing). Player was two yards off - VAR overrules. Player timed his run perfectly and was a yard onside when the ball was played - well done ref, as you were, one nil. Can't really tell from this angle, could his nose be offside? Better hold the game up for 5 minutes while we draw lines and run two seconds of videotape back and forth like some static Sisyphean drones, until, in desperation, we guess - no, **** that, just stick with the referee's original decision.
I’d be interested in giving teams check abilities. Think somethings up, you can ask to check it. If you’re right, you get your check back. If not you lose it. One per half that’s not carried over. Means you can’t abuse it. Means not everything is checked.
The difference, IMO, is Sky shows everything in seconds, “he’s onside, runs through, knocks the ball passed the keeper then dives, clearly see it’s a dive, no penalty.” That’s an example that sticks in my mind from a few years ago, it might have been a big game in the PL, for some reason De Gea as the keeper rings a bell. But it was shown numerous times on Sky whilst the defending team argued it was a dive. Now VAR has one angle, that you can’t see clearly & they’re still deciding if it’s offside or not before they even get to the penalty decision.
