Is the use of VAR missing the point?

[blueheeler1]

My understanding on the use of VAR is that it is here to stop the bad decisions.

I do not think it is in use to oversee the game and report on every issue. But I could be corrected.

If the Ref misses a foul but VAR picks it up and the Ref hasn't seen it and called for a VAR review then we just move on. And at that point that's perfectly correct IMO.

Cricket review is an interesting example of video replay.

On review, the game interprets the result of "ball tracking" hitting the stumps in two ways.

If the umpire had called "not out" the majority of the ball has to have been hitting the stump before the umpire's real-time call is reversed. With less than 50% of the ball hitting the stump it results in the upholding of the "not out" decision. In other words, the Umpire's original decision was not a howling mistake.

To me that is similar to a VAR review showing a player's toe is offside on review therefore ruling out a goal.

Surely a minimum of a players whole body has to be offside before you can say that a linesman missing a player's toe being offside is a "bad decision"?

It's all about sensible interpretation of a real-time quick situation rather than using technology as a freeze frame absolute--just because we can.

And that is why we should be allowing a sensible margin of error between a human judgement of a human sport and an absolute technological outcome.

Let's ONLY make VAR a useful tool for correcting bad decisions.

[Altobelli]

Said at the time it was a waste of time the way it is set up, and so it is still proving.