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VAR

Drico said:
If you take the view that VAR is simply the latest tool for the PL to control the narrative - and I do - then it needs to be removed. The joy of a goal has been eliminated from the game. One has to wait in suspended agony - "ooh, the ratings" - for the officials to, possibly, get the call wrong. And there is no consistency. We have goal-line technology and that works well. When Frank Lampard's ghost goal occurred in 2010, I could see a clear rationale for such technology. But when the Polish goalkeeper was penalised for brushing Messi having dealt with a cross in 2022, I knew it had jumped the shark.

Whistling people offside - after a 5-minute deliberation - for having a toe or kneecap the "wrong" side of the defender is really not what technology should be focusing on. No daylight between the players, the goal should stand. Call it the George Graham rule. He berated his defenders if they claimed offside against a forward who got the wrong side of them without leaving daylight between them. Rightly so.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the technology itself - which is fine - the people controlling it (the likes of Masters and Infantino) cannot be trusted to use it in ways that benefit the game. They use it in ways that make them more money. More suspense, more drama, more ability to manipulate ratings and the narrative. Look at how points deductions - again, as inconsistent as any VAR calls - were used to artifically generate a relegation battle. They cannot be trusted to have such direct control over the game. When that ref in our cup game made the right call, was asked to go to the screen, and then reversed his own good decision (later proven correct), I knew this could never work. It's no longer a help to referees. It's just more cognitive load. In the past, when a ref made a mistake, one could at least point to the idea that it was an honest one made in the heat of the moment. Nowadays, when they have lots of time to make a decision - and still get it wrong - one is entitled to think either the technology has not helped or they are corrupt. Either way, it's doing refs no favours.
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As a tool to control narrative it does a pretty poor job. It's a fact that it's been used to give decisions that have hindered the 'narrative' that people talk about. It wasn't used very well to ensure the narrative of Everton's relegation battle against Forest was it? Any narrative you propose I'd be pretty sure there is a VAR decision that runs against it at some point. What's the narrative that pushes Villa into the CL at the expense of a Scab 6 team?

The whole VAR is a narrative tool conspiracy simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Isolated decisions are elevated to critical story points while those that don't or indeed harm that narrative are conveniently ignored.

And you've got a pretty short memory, or a very rose tinted one, if you believe that there was a universal acceptance that refs mistakes were nothing more than honest errors made in the heat of the moment. It'd just be back to "The Ref's in on the conspiracy / has it in for us" rhetoric.
 

I can't stand VAR .

I thinking it's wrecking football and sucks all the spontaneity, emotion and fun out of football.

Although the football obviously is of a lower standard I prefer watching Championship football simply because there is no VAR.

However the genie is out of the bottle. There will be no turning back . A whole cottage industry on the back of VAR has sprung up and there are too many vested interests to do away with it. It would be like King Canute trying to turn the tide back. Sadly it won't happen.
 
Cake said:
Many say the VAR refs are terrible but aren't the VAR refs the refs on the pitch the next week? Attwell on VAR Us/Forest and then he was the ref on the pitch Us/Sheff Utd.

It can't be VAR that is rubbish but how they use it and/or have been shown how to use it - also the general overall poor standard of refereeing maybe (Attwell for one, rubbish on VAR and on the pitch, Pawson's another).

There is always corruption, of course.
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Have a guess who's on VAR for the Arsenal game, your friend and mine, Atwell
 

DRS in cricket works well. Surely the prem could implement a similar process. Keep the Var out of the Refs ear until a team appeals a decision. Even then there should not be communication between the VAR and referee.

I don't know how a ref is meant to concentrate while 3 people in his ear all the time.
 
riddick said:
I really find it interesting that there are so many against VAR in general instead of how the PREMIER LEAGUE use VAR. It works in every sport out there and works in ALMOST every instance in other countries who use it for football. It's mates who don't want to overrule their mates. The EASIEST way to fix this is to have a dedicated VAR group for Europe but they have no idea who they are watching until that day. And you can't do your own country. Bam, it's fixed.
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The argument that it works in other sports is pointless though because other sports are different so its not a direct comparison.
Sean Ashley said:
DRS in cricket works well. Surely the prem could implement a similar process. Keep the Var out of the Refs ear until a team appeals a decision. Even then there should not be communication between the VAR and referee.

I don't know how a ref is meant to concentrate while 3 people in his ear all the time.
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This is a good example of what i'm talking about. You can't have a review system where the call is subjective though because it won't work. If you get given out caught behind in cricket and you KNOW you didn't hit it you review it they'll check whether you did or not and if theres clear evidence that you didn't then it gets overturned its as simple as that theres no need for subjective interpretation. In football you could review something where you KNOW you got kicked in the box and so you're 100% sure you should get a penalty but they can still look at it and see the contact but decide its not a pen. This is the whole issue with VAR people want objective decisions in a sport which doesn't really have them.
 
Wolves' reasons for binning VAR.

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