After last nights game between Newcastle and Fulham and the penalty and red card for Wilson's dive, VAR is only getting worse. Not only were fans hoping that illegal goals were chalked off and penalties given, I am sure that most fans hoped that cheats would no longer prosper, but for me VAR is enabling them. Watching these overpaid pussies who don't wear boots anymore, they are more like ballet shoes (which is quite apt really) coming down the tunnel before kick off with upturned hands like they hadn't quite finished with hand dryer and presumably praying to whoever their god of cheating is and then spending a lot of the 90 minutes doing just that. Either VAR needs to do what it is there to do or lets just bin it, it seems to me that football cares more about making money than the shabby product it puts out, the people who run the game are just so far out of touch with the fans.
I agree with most of that Jiffie but it did catch the ugly tackle on Grealish by Livermore and gave him a red card instead of yellow. It looks like they want Einstein and Pythagoras to solve offsides these days with all those graphics and to me it should be whether the entire body is beyond the last defender and not just his arm or whatever other part of the body is determined to have given the forward the advantage. It's getting way to technical and subjective and don't get me going on what constitutes handball these days.
I agree totally but my main question would be, if they apply offside to the enth degree, why not penalties and especially cheating? it seems to me that for incidents like penalties and cheating everything is geared up to save the referees blushes. In rugby if the TMO will offer an opinion as to whether the onfield decision is correct and if the video evidence is unclear they will say so. TMO can also bring to the attention of the referee something he has missed. In football VAR can rule on offsides but not on penalties, violent play or cheating, they can only suggest that the referee looks at the screen and the referee decides whether he can be arsed or not. The system in football enables cheats.
I think the whole VAR system needs a review and let's go back to the basics even though I also think it has corrected a few errors that may have been missed prior to the system. Why doesn't the referee go directly to the screen rather than wasting time before he goes over there to self evaluate the final decision? Some aspects of the VAR I really like but the game is now becoming too much like American sport where so much time is wasted and I wonder how long it will be before "time outs"?
For one person, the ref to instantly, and often partly unsighted, make a decision with so many bits of the puzzle to appraise is extremely difficult. Blatant offside usually has 2 factors in plain sight. The finger, toe or nose in an offside position near on impossible to determine by the referee. You are quite right, for a goal to allowed it has to be over the line so why not an offside. Maybe for VAR it is expecting to much, a millimetre of the offending player, so maybe it has to be the whole leg and part of the body! or indeed daylight between players? could be but would affect the defence springing the offside trap!
VAR was needed to clear up goals being disallowed incorrectly, to spot marginal offsides not spotted by the officials and any serious foul play etc. But the reality is that despite the 21st Century technology available, and with the added bonus of instant replays and a second pair of eyes back at base, the Referees are still making unacceptable mistakes even with the overwhelming evidence available to them. So either scrap VAR and go back to how things were, or get people in that understand how to watch a video and get the decision right 100% of the time. It's really not difficult
Spot on the people that run football have become obsessed with making offside decisions that can be calibrated in millimetres. But penalty divers and cheats are still getting away with it. Because as I said unlike TMO in rugby the VAR man cannot influence or advise the referee, only suggest he looks at the pitch side monitor, to make his own mind up. I watched Bristol play Connaught in a Euopean competition on Sunday and right at the death a Connaught player heading for a last minute try (that had it been given would have given them an important bonus point) the Connaught players complained of an illegal tackle by the Bristol player to prevent the try and referee referred it to the TMO (the first time during the game he had used the TMO) and after watching the incident from various angles and before the referee commented theTMO guy said "I am seeing a perfectly legal tackle" and the referee replied "I agree", incident over and correct decision arrived at, in football the VAR guy could not advise the referee only suggest that he looks at the incident on the pitch side monitor. Referees need all the help that they can get and fans deserve to see that cheats no longer prosper, I hate the cheating it ruins the game for me, I don't watch the world cup anymore because it has become 4 year world cup cheat fest and Neymar is the biggest cheat I have ever seen play what used to be the beautiful game.
Hadn't thought of that, but you could well be on to something there. A bit like a self driving car that suddenly veers off the road just when you've started to trust it I'd also like to nominate Deco (who's overall persona and attitude I despised), Rivaldo, and the biggest cheat of all them all Maradonna. Like you I don't watch World Cups anymore or even England games since the Beckham publicity machine decreed that having the wives and girlfriends along for a jolly to watch the hero play Quarterback was far more important than playing football
