The VAR Debate

[60YearsAPie]

Belgium's Disciplinary Council for Professional Football has ruled that Genk's defeat to Anderlecht must be replayed in full due to a VAR error. A Genk penalty was disallowed after a VAR check found that a Genk player was encroaching. What VAR didn't notice was that an Anderlecht player was also encroaching. This meant that the penalty should have been re-taken.

This is now getting silly. How many games over the years would have been replayed if referees' errors had been taken into account? Our game yesterday against Barrow, for one.

VAR OUT!

[upthemaggies]

Belgium's Disciplinary Council for Professional Football has ruled that Genk's defeat to Anderlecht must be replayed in full due to a VAR error. A Genk penalty was disallowed after a VAR check found that a Genk player was encroaching. What VAR didn't notice was that an Anderlecht player was also encroaching. This meant that the penalty should have been re-taken.

This is now getting silly. How many games over the years would have been replayed if referees' errors had been taken into account? Our game yesterday against Barrow, for one.

VAR OUT!

It only gets worse instead of better.

[legs77]

VAR isnt the problem its the standards of the idiots using it.

[Newish Pie]

VAR isnt the problem its the standards of the idiots using it.

Agreed. Or the systems and rules by which they're using it. There are always going to be controversies and disagreements, but they manage to use VAR in the world cup/European Championships without anything like the major issues or the delays, or at least that's how I remember them.

There's no case that I can see for replaying games due to VAR error like the one in Belgium, even when there's process errors like in the Liverpool-Spurs games. Those are just misapplications of the laws of the game, and that's always happened.

VAR should be for clear and obvious errors only - otherwise, on-field decision stands. If it takes several minutes to work it out, that's neither clear nor obvious as an error. No re-refereeing. We need clear criteria for when the referee gets invited to come to the monitor... I can't work out what the rule is for that... why does it happen some times and not others? If it's because the VAR officials can't make up their minds, then the on-field decision stands. Oh, and stop giving quite so many decisions to the Big Sky Teams.

[ancientpie]

Agreed. Or the systems and rules by which they're using it. There are always going to be controversies and disagreements, but they manage to use VAR in the world cup/European Championships without anything like the major issues or the delays, or at least that's how I remember them.

There's no case that I can see for replaying games due to VAR error like the one in Belgium, even when there's process errors like in the Liverpool-Spurs games. Those are just misapplications of the laws of the game, and that's always happened.

VAR should be for clear and obvious errors only - otherwise, on-field decision stands. If it takes several minutes to work it out, that's neither clear nor obvious as an error. No re-refereeing. We need clear criteria for when the referee gets invited to come to the monitor... I can't work out what the rule is for that... why does it happen some times and not others? If it's because the VAR officials can't make up their minds, then the on-field decision stands. Oh, and stop giving quite so many decisions to the Big Sky Teams.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly, I still believe that VAR was only accepted because they said it would only be used to stop clear & obvious errors & to punish diving, it's just not working that way.

[jackal2]

VAR isnt the problem its the standards of the idiots using it.

True. In the relatively few cases where VAR decisions turn out to be wrong, that's the problem. VAR certainly hasn't made refereeing 100% infallible and nobody ever claimed it would. What it HAS done, without question, is considerably increase the number of correct decisions, but inevitably, the focus of the media (who still want something to talk about after all) will always be on the remaining errors.

The whole debate really needs to move on, because VAR isn't going anywhere. Wheels don't get uninvented. Football is now a multi-billion pound business and the days when it was okay to say "the bad decisions will even themselves out over a season" have long gone. It's not an amateur game with jumpers for goalposts anymore. The focus should (and will) be on how to improve VAR further, so even fewer mistakes are made in the future, and that really boils down to improving the standard of the officials interpreting it.

[60YearsAPie]

True. In the relatively few cases where VAR decisions turn out to be wrong, that's the problem. VAR certainly hasn't made refereeing 100% infallible and nobody ever claimed it would. What it HAS done, without question, is considerably increase the number of correct decisions, but inevitably, the focus of the media (who still want something to talk about after all) will always be on the remaining errors.

The whole debate really needs to move on, because VAR isn't going anywhere. Wheels don't get uninvented. Football is now a multi-billion pound business and the days when it was okay to say "the bad decisions will even themselves out over a season" have long gone. It's not an amateur game with jumpers for goalposts anymore. The focus should (and will) be on how to improve VAR further, so even fewer mistakes are made in the future, and that really boils down to improving the standard of the officials interpreting it.

So, going back to my original post, does this mean you agree with matches being replayed when a VAR mistake is identified? With fewer people taking up refereeing because of abuse and violence at grass roots level, the standard of refereeing ain't going to improve any time soon.

[jackal2]

So, going back to my original post, does this mean you agree with matches being replayed when a VAR mistake is identified? With fewer people taking up refereeing because of abuse and violence at grass roots level, the standard of refereeing ain't going to improve any time soon.

No, once a mistake is made it's made and the result should stand, whether VAR is involved or not. The purpose of VAR is to reduce the number of times a mistake stands uncorrected in-game, which it has done, but correct decisions aren't 'news' for the pundits and media so they will still focus on the (albeit far fewer) number of errors, not least because the VAR 'debate' itself fills in time.

I agree with you about the standard of refereeing, so in that sense it might be a long time before we get officials good enough to take VAR interpretation to another level, but that's where the focus of attention should be, because the genie isn't going back in the bottle. Quite the opposite. We live in a world where the use of technology is only going to increase. And I'm not saying that to be provocative and wind up those who don't like VAR, I'm just stating the obvious really. I'm actually mildly technophobic myself, but I'm not the future.

[PedroTheFisherman66]

No, once a mistake is made it's made and the result should stand, whether VAR is involved or not. The purpose of VAR is to reduce the number of times a mistake stands uncorrected in-game, which it has done, but correct decisions aren't 'news' for the pundits and media so they will still focus on the (albeit far fewer) number of errors, not least because the VAR 'debate' itself fills in time.

I agree with you about the standard of refereeing, so in that sense it might be a long time before we get officials good enough to take VAR interpretation to another level, but that's where the focus of attention should be, because the genie isn't going back in the bottle. Quite the opposite. We live in a world where the use of technology is only going to increase. And I'm not saying that to be provocative and wind up those who don't like VAR, I'm just stating the obvious really. I'm actually mildly technophobic myself, but I'm not the future.

The trouble is that VAR is a nice little earner for someone, so if brown envelopes go to the decision makers we know what happens ! World Cups in Qatar for starters !

[Newish Pie]

No, once a mistake is made it's made and the result should stand, whether VAR is involved or not. The purpose of VAR is to reduce the number of times a mistake stands uncorrected in-game, which it has done, but correct decisions aren't 'news' for the pundits and media so they will still focus on the (albeit far fewer) number of errors, not least because the VAR 'debate' itself fills in time.

I agree with you about the standard of refereeing, so in that sense it might be a long time before we get officials good enough to take VAR interpretation to another level, but that's where the focus of attention should be, because the genie isn't going back in the bottle. Quite the opposite. We live in a world where the use of technology is only going to increase. And I'm not saying that to be provocative and wind up those who don't like VAR, I'm just stating the obvious really. I'm actually mildly technophobic myself, but I'm not the future.

I'm not quite so sure that the standard of refereeing is that bad overall, especially at the top level now we've got a lot more full time professionals, training programmes etc. We probably have the fittest, best trained referees ever.

The problem we have is a number of laws of the game where the practical meanings just aren't clear. Sometimes this is because the interpretations make no sense, sometimes it's because the laws (or their interpretations) have changed and a lot of fans haven't caught up yet.

In particular, the handball law is a mess. Old Pie mentioned grappling and pulling and shirt tugging in the area... I seem to remember a short period of time when penalties were given for this. I don't see a great deal of consistency as regards yellow cards, and especially second yellows. And then with VAR we can't seem to decide whether we're re-refereeing or looking for clear and obvious errors. Into this 'corridor of uncertainty' come the confusions and odd decisions which... tend to favour the Big Sky Teams. Probably not because of brown envelopes, but more likely because they get less grief that way.

Then... SinceSept1959 touched on this earlier... there's the pundits and commentators, who give some players and some teams license to break or bend the rules that they deny to others. So... some teams and players (and you can guess which ones) are employing good game management while others are time-wasting cheats robbing the paying public. Some players are "entitled to go down" because there was "contact" whereas others are divers, or "needed to be stronger there, for me". Some might think they don't matter, but they set the tone of discussions, and a lot of football fans are aware of their own bias and value their more objective views. Only... not so much.