[Football] VAR, 6 years in - Keep it or bin it?

[RandyWanger]

It's another nail in the coffin for the match day experience in the stadium. It could be massively improved upon easily, but clearly there's no desire. It creates conversation and controversy on the TV coverage and that's what it's all about

 

[Oscar]

Bin it. Purely for the reason it has taken away from the highlight of watching any game - your team scoring. I'd actually take the odd injustice or wrong call to have those moments of pure and uninterrupted celebration back again.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

A linesman would put their flag up as the goal goes in so you celebrate for a second before saying "no! It's offside".

VAR we celebrate, go back to the centre, hear there is a check.....and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait...


It's completely different

Yes. completely different. Without VAR the pause is momentary. Once you've been watching football for a few years you know which goals go in where you should glance at the lino as the ball is hitting the net. Flag down? Job done. Go beserk

 

[Don Tmatter]

Keep the technology, bin the corruption

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Keep the technology, bin the corruption

To which corruption do you refer?

 

[medwayseagull reborn]

Anything that stops Craig Pawson making yet another cock up is acceptable to me.

 

[fruitnveg]

bad decisions before VAR were subject of conversation and mockery. Now, in addition they are subject of confusion and fury. There is no valid excuse to get things wrong. Subjectivity would need to be removed. They won't, so bin it. Lets go back to a happier time. They won't do that either though, too many vested interests now.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

The biggest thing which I think damns VAR is that sense of confusion, where you're not sure if a goal is being checking or they are checking if they are going to check it, or they've had a look and decided no check is needed.

Players seem to be ambling back to the middle but you're still not sure. There was a collision in the build up or it was quite close to an arm. They are standing in their own halves now, they could in theory play. They start playing, yes it was a goal.

You've had to wait until the restart of play until you actually know. I mean, come on, whether you're in favour of VAR or not, that's ridiculous.

The progress we have made in the last 6 years as far as I can tell is that 10 minutes after the incident a PGMOL twitter post is added to a screen I can barely see let alone read off to explain the reason for a check.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

How many people have given up football because of it? I know of at least 3. I will make number 4 when I can get rid of my season ticket.

Worst thing to ever happen to football (unless Palace win the FA cup on Saturday).

I know numerous ST holders, I dread to think how many it is, and none have given up due to VAR.

 

[A1X]

I assume those who are against VAR didn’t celebrate the Alexis MacAllister penalty against Man Utd (awarded by VAR, not the on field ref) and were also perfectly happy with the assault on Mitoma by that Sheffield United player last season resulting only in a yellow?

 

[banjo]

It’s so refreshing watching football without it. Last nights playoff game for example.

 

[The Lemming Stomper]

Watching the EFL and non-league is so much better without VAR which says something when the standard compared to the EPL is considerably worse..

BIN it

 

[DIFFBROOK]

I would bin it. Football is a human game, mistakes happen. Just like players miss an open goal, so refs also miss things and make mistakes.

The better plan would be for more money to improve training of officials.

VAR or AI (God forbid) will soon be covering the whole game soon.

 

[drew]

So we have this set of officials. They aren't going to get much better. In fact they are more likely to get worse as fewer are taking the roles at grass roots, so the talent pool shrinks.

So given that improving the standard of officiating is unlikely in the short term, do you think VAR should be kept?

yes

 

[Justice]

I would bin it. Football is a human game, mistakes happen. Just like players miss an open goal, so refs also miss things and make mistakes.

The better plan would be for more money to improve training of officials.

VAR or AI (God forbid) will soon be covering the whole game soon.

So we lose or draw three in a row in the last minutes by goals scored that are all a mile offside? Not sure we want to go back to that.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

You will no doubt be unsurprised to learn that I regard VAR as a mood-hoover, a joy sucker, an unrelenting misery that creates a substandard in ground "fan experience" and hasn't removed any of the controversy. It has changed how the game is played and has contributed to football becoming a science, rather than an art. Along with xG, "revolving, inverted low blocks out of possession" and vloggers in the stands it can get in the sea.

However, I am not @goldstone and I fully accept that there is much to modern football that is great. The levels of skill and athleticism surpass anything seen in the past, the data analytics and algos allow "teams like Brighton" to succeed in the top division and become more than the sum of their parts, goalkeepers now who are as good with the ball as their defenders rather than being the fat, mad bloke who wasn't good enough on pitch. All these things are wonderful.

But, when just last weekend, there was outrage that Leyton Orient scored from five yards offside and EQUAL outrage on these very pages and one of my WhatsApp groups that Welbz had a perfectly good goal chalked off by the mood hoover, VAR has solved nothing. It's just given us something else to be mad at.

There, I suspect you knew I'd say that word for word

If your name were Tim, which it isn't, I'd say verbatim.

 

[drew]

My changes that I would hope would improve the system.

1. Get rid of pitch side monitors. The VAR is as qualified as the man in the middle and has the advantage of seeing the incident in slow motion from different angles. Make a decision and there is no reason for them to defer to the pitch referee. That would speed up decisions.
2. Communication. Discussions should be broadcast and video replays shown on big screens in real time.
3. Referees apply the existing rules. The 6 second rule. Delaying free kicks (every free kick sees the defending team stand in front of the ball. That is delaying a free kick just as much as Rice knocking the ball into touch). Booking players for time wasting as soon as they start, not with 2 or 3 minutes of the match remaining. Especially keepers that catch the ball and fall to the ground (that should actually count as being in control and the 6 seconds should start whether they are on the ground or on their feet).
4. Punish players retrospectively with bans for simulation, whether that be for diving or for faking injury.
5. If the ref stops the game because a player is down that player automatically receives treatment and is off the pitch for 30 seconds. The ref should not stroll over to them and ask if they want treatment and after a delay they get back to their feet.
6. Ensure they punish players when they surround the ref to pressure for decisions. We had a rule a couple of years ago yet once again the refs failed to apply it regularly.
7. Allow players to take free kicks as soon as they want. None of this delay and waiting for the whistle.

That's just for starters.

If referees for the professional game adhere to the rules and punish appropriately, it will make it far easier for refs at grassroots level to do the same. A refs job is not to ensure the game flows, that's down to the players. Their role is purely to apply the laws of the game, something they are ineffective at doing.

 

[albionfan37]

Enough mistakes are made to warrant keeping it but improvements are needed all the same

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

So we lose or draw three in a row in the last minutes by goals scored that are all a mile offside? Not sure we want to go back to that.

I guess sometimes we'd also win because of a dodgy offside

 

[Oh_aye]

I was shocked to realise that we have now had VAR for six seasons in the Premier League so it seems like a good opportunity to review it.

If you had the decision would you keep it or bin it. No fence option because if you can't decide after six years how many more years do you want?

Anything that can't be completed automated In a millisecond should just get binned.

Anything that needs slowed down human judgement has so much unconscious bias attached to it that it's even worse than a split second decision as it brings slow human panic into the decisions.

It was made to get rid of contentious decisions but if anything there are even more and the game at the top where VAR exists has become detached from the game at other levels. It's also rendered refs into completely useless, second guessing, gibbering idiots.

Ball going out of play, last person to touch it - defining corners, goal kicks etc, automated offside where its clear - not tiny, marginal 'drawing lines' bollocks, and timekeeping. I'd like to see those automated. All the rest left to the refs.

Also refs need to have played football to a decent standard, and know what a foul is, what a dive is, what momentum is.