You cannot make penalty decisions objective they will always be the subject of opinion. The same as fouls in general. Use it for offsides and 'line' decisions by all means but extending the use as they have done only transfers the 'opinion' elsewhere. If you are to change the rules to be 'objective' then you will have to remove contact completely and destroy the game.
The row over the city disallowed goal and all the hypocrisy has added a growing list of reasons that I am hoping the "big" clubs **** off to form a european super league so we can enjoy our football The outrage over city "losing" 2 points stands in stark contrast to the deafening silence from the same media about the ridiculous handball rule that cost a penalty in the CL final. I ain't saying thst we were treated unfavourably by that ref or VAR but I am saying that the handball rule is a joke. City and those now outraged on their behalf had no issue with them getting a penalty in the CL agsinst us due to the insane handball laws. They also screamed handball for the Llorente goal, which they now claim was him pushing the ball into the net, saying it was a "clear" handball (when it was way way less clear than the one on Saturday) but are now outraged cos it has gone against them. City got away with with with outrageous decisions lsst season... they should have lost to Swansea and, but for a moronic decision not to have VAR would have done. Kompany should have been sent off inside the first few minutes v Burnley for an appalling and very high challenge on Lennon which VAR would have flagged up. (If I remember correctly, the same thing happened with Kompany v Leicester when he bought down Vardy the previous season). My point is that the rules might be **** but at least refs are now implementing them...that has got to be better than the nonsense that has gone before where bigger teams got the benefit of the doubt at best or favouritism at worse. Fans of ALL clubs can point out blatantly outrageous decisions that are CLEARLY wrong ... to see pundits and fans complaining that a rule (regardless of whether it was a stupid rule) was correctly implemented is bizarre. I felt the same about the offside goal city had ruled out...offside is offside...if the rule is applied across the board then that is much fairer than the nonsense that went before. Judgements over fouls will always be difficult because they are not factual but hand ball and offside are factual...I prefer handball is hand ball because we all know what the result will be rather than it being a random call dependent on the whim of a particular ref who could be having a bad match, be swayed by the crowd or be a mug.
Pens do look like they'll always be a morass of subjective interpretation, agreed. But the handball rule is a step in the right direction, since it's much clearer whether a ball hits an arm than what the intent or nature of the deflection was. Unfortunately that won't work for defensive handballs, as attackers will and have simply targetted defenders' arms. Football unfortunately may be the toughest sport to make game deciding decisions. But efforts to make those decisions more objective without enabling them to be gamed, and to make VAR more fan-friendly, should be supported.
They're going to be so pissed off when they sign the Norwegian U18 international Andres ****var in January - as they play on the left wing
It is fast becoming clear that VAR as it has been introduced in the premier league is a lame duck. Having the decisions on VAR decided by the same group of incompetent match officials that make the rubbish decisions in the first place and who are not prepared to make their colleagues look foolish is plain stupid. A separate panel of VAR referees need to be appointed either from ex/retired former prem league refs or better still from overseas because the current system is clearly not working.
How they came to the conclusion the Tielemans tackle was not a red card sums up VAR. All we want is the correct decision applied, the Buffoon on the pitch can`t do it correctly and neither can the Clowns in the studio after watching it back on video.
There isn't enough top flight referees to man the VAR so they use referees aspiring to be promoted to the top flight, probably the most unlikely people in the world to expose a ref for being wrong. Retired refs is the answer, and a mix of foreign and british.
You know VAR's getting to you when you start sympathising with Liverpool. Mane's disallowed goal on Saturday for the most marginal offside was ridiculous. How do they know the exact point at which the ball is played? We never seem to have any scrutiny of the technology in that respect. If the ball was played 0.05 seconds earlier or later, it would make all the difference if you are deeming that a player is offside because he hasn't cut his fingernails recently. VAR is bringing the game into disrepute. It's sucking the life out of what should be most enjoyable parts of a game. "Offsides" that penalise the quick thinking forwards; "handballs" that have turned committed defending into an offence; any unintentional or mistimed feather touches of an opponent, however slight, being called as a "foul" and rendering football a virtual non-contact sport.
Any offside that is too close to call should be given as onside, if you need a thousand replays, slo-motion and dozen of angles then it’s clearly debatable so give the advantage to the attacker.
I've said this several times but VAR needs a time limit. Basic logic suggests that if you can't decide something after X amount of time, then the incident cannot by definition be "clear and obvious", therefore the on field ref's decision stands. However, completely agree that VAR is trying to make something subjective sound scientific, which clearly it isn't so is undermining the system and the game (eg there is no objective measure of when the ball is played, so where they even place that line for offside is subjective). I also agree that the VAR officials should be a separate team. I would even suggest that the VAR ref is senior to the man on the field - which allows for a place for on field refs to carry on, even after they should retire. Why do VAR refs need the same physical capabilities as the on field ref? They should have a separate set of abilities, and separately qualified.
I generally agree with this but with some suggestions. There are about 10 cameras at each match and it is perfectly possible that the foul is only clear and obvious on one of them. So it does need a bit of time. The rugby system where the ref can talk to the off field officials and view the big screen and make the final decision while explaining it openly seems best to me. On offsides it is quite clear that the ball being kicked can't be isolated to a single frame. So offside should only be given if the player is offside in three successive frames. I've no difficulty in offsides being given by a cm.
