VAR is killing football. Making it palatable is likely beyond the powers that be

Referees all know that one week they could be judging a colleague and the next week that colleague could be judging them. They are not going to risk antagonising anyone.
If VAR was to work, it might need to be run by anyone other than referees.

Similarly, I hoped and maybe expected that VAR would eliminate the worst decisions, and perhaps reduce the amount of diving for penalties. It has done neither, and it has introduced a whole raft of new problems and unintended consequences.

Fully in agreement with the offside assessment and need for clear daylight; in addition, we need ARs to actually call obvious offsides as well, rather than waiting a minute.

The sense of entitlement (for a correct decision) that comes VAR is also a problem; without VAR, I think people mostly "accept" all but the most egregious of refereeing errors or performances (Clive Thomas which I watched from the Kippax, Clattenburg which I missed, and the Rodri handball which I myself saw from the Bullens Rd etc).

Finally, agree we should probably just scrap it and start over. The game is just unmanageable as it is, and simply it's not as much fun any more.

Lyndon, in that one sentence, you have nailed why VAR should be scrapped. Most sports depend for their result upon the accumulation of points. Think rugby, cricket, basketball, golf, tennis, exciting enough in themselves; but a goal is scarce, it is difficult, misses are frequent, saves occur.

That is the beauty of football — when a goal arrives, it should be like an arrow through your heart, or an explosion of joy. A glance at the referee and their assistant is all that is needed. They have taken that away from us.

As the late and lovely Melanie Safka might have sung – “Look what they've done to our game, Ma. Well they've picked it like a chicken bone and it's turning out all wrong, Ma, look what they've done to our game!”

She's a Geelong Aussie rules football fan and couldn't see the pleasure in watching a game of "soccer" with just one or two goals. Compared to Aussie rules which has "goals" galore (6 points for a goal, 1 for a behind) and with scores typically in excess of 50 points per team per game.

Thing is, I've been to Aussie rules games and a cheer goes up if a 6-point goal is scored (a stifled cheer if it's a behind); but even the goal celebration is pretty muted and short-lived. Nothing ecstatic.

VAR has given us worse than Aussie-rule type goals – muted and tentative celebrations.

One, there's too much money at stake, particularly gambling money.

And two, the turds and morons who run the FA, PGMOL and FIFA itself will never, ever admit failure to implement video replay, which has been successfully deployed in every other major sport on the planet.

Rick #1 is right about refs judging refs. It's a disaster. Either you totally empower the refs to be the only ones consulting VAR -- whether responding to their own doubts or a ping in the ear or a coach's formal challenge (as the NFL, basketball and hockey have done) -- or you take it completely out of their hands, as baseball has done, where a manager's challenge signal triggers a replay review in New York and the umpires never even see it.

Video replay works in all these big-money sports. It works in rugby and cricket and field hockey, and individual sports like tennis and fencing and taekwondo and judo. It even works to check rules violations in motorsports and horse racing and rodeo.

The only sport where a video review system has failed is footy. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is solely because of the idiots imposing the lunatic rules and bizarre officiating procedures, from the handball penalty psychosis, to keeping the offside flag down until somebody gets hurt, to booth officials warping the game to their own taste and pulling the referees to the sidelines.

This is the stuff that Howard Webb was supposed to straighten out, and I'm shocked that he has, as Lyndon says, made the situation worse. PGMOL had better find somebody else and empower them to dismantle the current system, because VAR isn't going away, and the train wreck is only going to keep happening.

So therefore we need new 'Powers that Be'

Why?

Because the Premier League and/or PGMOL seem to me to be in breach of FIFA rules, which state (gist) 'The Referee controls the Game...with the help of Assistants'

But it's obviously they don't - The Assistants are controlling Referee!!

Disband PGMOL, form a new body...yeah I know it will still have the same idiots in it.

But the real trick will be to totally sever and forever distance this new Referees Association (Tm. pat. pending) from their (sky?) Premier League Paymasters.

These Premier League Paymasters who to me seem to have PGMOL under a dual thrall of being the person that pays the Piper while most definitely calling the tune via a few 'unwritten rules of engagement' of the...if in doubt first check the shirt colour and badge - then rule accordingly...variety.

To my knowledge they've tweaked it 2 or 3 times to fix things - and made it worse each time

Get rid and start again - yeah right, that's going to happen.

All Monoliths eventually fall, helped by outside forces, but usually from within, it's never pretty though and there are always casualties...truth being one of them and that's happening now with our case(s).

When the dust settles will we be seen as the first domino, should we change our name to FC Archduke Franz Ferdinand?

Or will it be a case of - meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

But I actually like the baseball system, where the manager signals a protest, and the umpire puts on a headset and tells the New York replay studio, "Hey, it's Joe in Chicago, we've got a manager challenge on this play at the plate" and in a minute or two New York tells him, "The guy was safe." And that's it. Done.

Scrap VAR, and goal line technology for that matter. Get the pace back into the game.

The only thing that's 'clear and obvious' is that VAR makes it easier to maintain the status quo and keep the gravy train on the tracks for all the usual suspects.

The game is gone, what remains is something similar but money talks too much now.

A European league is sure to follow (with Euro Super VAR) but for armchair fans watching in replica shirts.

Perhaps that might save the English game for those who want to go along to the stadium and watch something more traditional.

Its the biggest own goal, in the history of Football, in that it was never properly Soak tested, across the game, by the right people to form a fair feedback and development plan.

If the principles, giudelines, best practice and descision times as adhered to in both Rugby Union and League, then it could be absorbed, but Stockley Park!
Brain Fart City!

But it doesn't. There is no consistency and for me it's like the officials are doing "Spot the Ball" and guessing.

Throw on the general demise in officials in the UK, the last 15 years, and the Medieval structure of Masters EPL, the match day experience is now a lottery.
You don't know what will happen, in terms of match day officials descions.

To celebrate or not to, 300 second delays and worst in offside descions.

What's a penalty award? Say no fekkn more.

The game is no longer a simple game. The EPL, management team, are not trusted and has no healthy respect, from all away supporters, Ive met this season.

What's the real agenda, and they talk about sporting advantage?

They have their bank accounts and undeclared back handers to cushion, any actions by the UK government, which could happen.

It's no longer a simple game.
The Football match, is no longer the primary interest, its become an entertainment industry and that's, sadly the way the game has gone.

I watched the Beyer v Bayern game last night, on Utube, and it was a good game to watch.

Bayer Leverkusen, are a good team, and well deserved their win, it could have been 5, or 6.

The Bundesliga, as was and still is.

UTFTs!

I'd get rid of VAR, and referees, and replace them with AI technology.

C'mon you 49ers.

It feels like the game is being deliberately destroyed. If it's not never-ending accusations of racism or sexism, then I know, let's make sure the fuckers can never celebrate a goal ever again, that should do it.

I kinda hope the 49ers win because all my Kansas City neighbors are acting like RS fans. Drunken, loud, red shirted spouting off incorrect “facts”. But, on the other hand, if they lose, they'll act like RS and burn down the city.

On the AI, interesting point. I've been using AI for all kinds of projects recently. Best secretary, engineer, accountant etc I've ever had. Could easily replace the overweight, short-sighted, corrupt Premier League referees.

I'd hate to be a ref in the modern game. The first thing any player does when he realises he's not going to win the ball, sprint or header, is to look for a free kick and cheat. That's what VAR should be used for.

A captain of a team should be able to say to the ref "Can we review that as my player never touched him." If he dived, or is holding just his face when he wasn't even touched in the face, then send him straight off. It would stop this nonsense immediately.

Then maybe referees could concentrate on getting the basics right instead of constantly having to put up with blatant cheating every second of every game.

Every club's players do it, week-in & week-out, even ours. But managers never ever see their players do it. VAR to stamp out cheating is all it is needed for in my opinion.

They have no mates to take care of. They will judge, on what they actually see in real time, not slowed down or stopped images. They should be separate from the PGMOL.

That's worth getting relegated for in my opinion. I hate it that much.

How wonderful it would be to be able to properly celebrate a goal again.

We might actually score some at that level too.

I wouldn't send a player off for feigning injury but I might insist that he is taken off on a stretcher and has to remain on the sidelines while he gets 5 or 10 minutes treatment before being able to return or to be subbed, I mean, Health & Safety, isn't it.

As for goalkeepers, the same as for others, Oh Dear, what a shame, never mind and nominate his 5/10 minute replacement from those on the pitch. The only problem being referees without adequate medical qualifications given how they have trouble with the rules of football.

Great idea that. I've thought that myself. Nothing so embarrassing as a player rolling around dying and the second the stretcher carries them over the white line, they are jumping up and down waving their arms at the ref to get back on.

Even worse when they are lying on the ground but, even though they are injured, they still can put a leg over the white line to stop play if they are close enough. The whole world and the authorities can see it, why not do something about it?

VAR was needed.

The problem isn't the technology.

It's the confusing rules and incompetent officials.

We can all see it. How they can't astounds me.

If they are feigning injury then they are cheating so send them straight off.

If they dive, then same thing. If there's a doubt about a dive or injury, then it should be reviewed afterwards and a ban occurs if cheating is found out.

I would also like managers to be interviewed on TV and asked these questions of whether they condone players who dive or cheat. Of course not one of them would admit to it but they would be a bit more wary about their players' behavior.

Players themselves should be interviewed about this to put them on the spot.

Commentators often say that a player was entitled to go down because “there was contact”; well, that's another thing that we need to clear up. They should be told it's a man's game and if you can't play fair then don't play it.

VAR is a total mess that's draining the game of entertainment and excitement at a time when it's already harder to watch than ever due to the lack of equality between clubs' resources. Look at the Man City bench on Saturday, for an example.

It's always the games where VAR got the decision right, never a game where they made a total dogs bollocks, except of course, the RS goal at Spurs when I suppose they had no choice after Bingo called for the audio to be heard.

Another joke is Ref Watch with Dermot Gallagher. He very rarely disagrees with any decision a ref or VAR make.

But then I realized that the decision wouldn't be overturned anyway, because it was very subjective.

Players are also very clever in certain situations nowadays, which obviously equates to we currently have a game full of cheating bastards!

Get Howard Webb on ref-watch every Monday and then suddenly this programme would hold a lot more significance, and the consistency levels would soon have to improve; otherwise, everyone would have enough evidence to begin to see right through him.

There is one fundamental issue here and that is football is played by humans, referees are human (most anyway) and the VAR is operated by humans and everybody makes mistakes and opinions will differ.

Those mistakes are made because football is different from the majority of sports in that opinions are subjective and many incidents are not black and white. One human will see the same action and have a different view of it.

The fact that an offside decision can take so long means that any pre-emptive celebration is like a premature ejaculation and we all know how the joy is taken from that situation!

Scrap VAR – it needs articles such as this one to stir up the natives to rebel.

He awarded a stonewall penalty and the lads who conceded adopted the now traditional stance of arms outstretched and faces of bewildered astonishment. “GET YOUR ARMS DOWN. NOW!” he roared at them. They very quickly did.

VAR is not gong away, as Mike @5 says, so it is essential that in its present form, it is stopped and looked at again with some of the suggestions by people on here and the whole football area applied to stop the very poor and ridiculous way it is being used now.

If we are using technology in the game in order to resolve controversial issues, then we either embrace it, or cast it aside and resume normal service via the referee and line officials.

I don't see the problem of managers at the pitch side, being miked up, and being allowed to view controversial decisions on the pitch-side screen with the referee present and give their opinions in a short statement on the incident, then the referee can make their decision.

It will never be perfect, but the choice of tinkering comes from those who are officiating the game.

Looking back through the years, I believe football has always been a reflection of life at that very time.

Like Liverpool having a last-minute winner ruled out at Goodison in 2020 for minuscule amount of offside. Or the ridiculously soft penalty we got at Palace a few weeks before the derby game.

I've followed our club for over 30 years and I've seen us get away with murder... the penalty against Wimbledon when Peter Fear barely touched Anders Limpar and we got the penalty to put us back in the game.

Not to mention the unbelievable decision to award us a penalty against Watford in 2006 when the ball clearly hit Chris Powell on the head, not his hand. The ball even left a white chalk mark on his black head but we still got a penalty.

I was a firm believer in things evening themselves out, I believe our performances are more important than the referees!

I never wanted VAR, I just think people should concentrate more on what they do themselves rather than looking for someone to blame!

It completely ruins the ecstasy of scoring a goal when you know it may get ruled out for whatever reason. It hasn't helped anything as people are complaining now more than ever before!

As for bias, the worst decision of the season went against Liverpool when they played Spurs. I just think it's incompetence rather than deliberate 'fixing' of a game.

The old way wasn't perfect and teams were robbed, but I'd take that over the circus we have now.

We will not develop better qualified officials than we have currently. What we have done is made them subservient to the technology and the committee supervising it. We are probably only a couple of years from handing over decision-making to AI at which point we might as well sit at home and watch games on screens. That is the path on which VAR has taken us.

It is a myth that in matters of opinion, as opposed to fact, other sports have made a success of the use of television replays. I read this morning an article about an ‘unforgivable decision' by the TMO at a Rugby Union international on Saturday not to award a try.

Everywhere we see overreach. And where will it stop? Why not use it for every throw-in, corner, goal-kick and free_kick decision. That's where the pursuit of a bogus 100% accuracy in decision-making is taking the sport.

Neville, spit the Caragher.

Andy #18, you make a great point that I missed. The players and (to a lesser extent) managers do bear responsibility for the system's failures as well. You don't see dives or flopping or "working the refs" in the NFL, rugby or Brent's beloved Aussie Rules (me too, Brent -- Hawthorn fan here!).

If stricter enforcement could get that out of the game, it would be a much better game and much easier to officiate. And VAR is the perfect weapon for that.

Ian #28, have you watched NFL games? Every bit as subjective as footy. One play is holding, another isn't. Does the ref call pass interference or was it incidental contact? The difference is that everybody recognizes it and simply gets on with the game. And the fans fully accept that once in a while they'll have to wait to celebrate a touchdown until replay confirms that the runner reached the goal line or the receiver got both feet down.

The difference with American Football is that the replay system, properly implemented, has become part of the game, a positive contributor to it, whereas in footy it has become a land mine due to the idiots running it. Footy isn't unique. It's just stupid.

Just read Dermott Gallagher's interpretation of the penalties, he said the Sheffield Utd penalty was awarded because, even though it was accidental, the ball hit the Luton player's arm and it was above his head and it was heading to goal, then the rules state it's a penalty.

But he said we as refs don't like the rule, so change the rule.

Regarding the penalty awarded to Luton, it was a corner the Luton player headed it down on to the Sheffield Utd player's arm and even Gallagher said it was very harsh and he probably wouldn't have given it.

So if the people using the VAR are incompetent what changes can you make to make them competent.

I used to feel embarrassed for the club when Richarlison and Gordon rolled around holding their shin no matter where they got touched.

VAR should be able to say “he barely touched him” and recommend a sin bin or card for attempting to deceive an official. It would take a matter of weeks for players to stop it and everyone's life would be easier.

Problem is – that means punishing the “Big 6” as they're often the worst culprits.

Why won't they mike the refs up, and let us hear how they have come to make their decisions, especially when they are already wearing microphones so they can talk to each other?

Is it to hide the incompetence? Or is it much more sinister than that?

Paul Tierney gave those two penalties on Saturday that Brian has just mentioned, after going over to the pitch side television, and yet the same Paul Tierney, saw nothing wrong with Rodri's handball, whilst he was on VAR?

Everyone has their own view, mine is that some decisions have a feeling about them that goes way past incompetence. Get a grip, Atwell, taking over 3 minutes to award Everton's, second goal against Spurs, definitely had a feeling of real bias, imo, and made me leave Goodison feeling very angry, rather than very happy, considering Everton had just scored a last-minute equalizer.

Even if they cut down the decision times to seconds rather than minutes, it takes away the spontaneity of the game. Nothing was better than going to the pub arguing about things. Now it's just VAR.

The corrupt lot at FIFA, UEFA, and the Premier League are only interested in money, not the fans. Footy as we grew up with, loved and embraced, is unfortunately long gone.

Without VAR no penalties would have been awarded in the Luton v Sheffield match. Rightly so.

VAR should principally be there to support penalty decisions and off-sides. In all other cases, allow the referee to call on VAR when there is something he/she wants a second opinion on. Otherwise, they should not interfere.

If you want to mitigate against manager or players complaints about decisions, perhaps allow each team one appeal to VAR per game if they feel a decision is wrong.

Change is needed though. It is getting so bad that we might as well ask AI to referee the games.

I can handle a few incorrect decisions from referees if It means I can go back to celebrating a goal when the ball goes into the net. These days, I find myself not getting overly excited when we score as I am expecting some tiny fault to be found after minutes of deliberation by some clowns watching slow-motion replays.

The ref made it clear that he only wanted to see the incident in real speed – no slow motion. He must have said it three times to let the TMO know he had no interest in slow-motion replays. I thought it was great refereeing.

In one game over the weekend, a defender is pulling
the opponent's shirt in the penalty area and gets away with it.
Later, a player in the same game does exactly the same thing in the middle of the park and gets booked for the foul!!

While we are having a moan, what is the quadrant in each corner of the ground for? Every corner sees 99% of the ball outside this quadrant when a corner is taken.

Some decisions VAR looks at, some it doesn't; some decisions they overule the ref, some they ask the ref to look again. There's no consistency. They should look at everything or nothing!!!

If a referee on the pitch gets to look at an issue once, live in play, and gets it wrong, yes it's controversial, but it's a genuine mistake or opinion.

If the referee on the pitch, and 3 others with all the other angles and replays still can't get it right, it's a total mess!!

You can have all the technology you want but it comes down to human subjectivity still, no matter how many angles or how slow something is played, and if the humans are not up to the task, you may as well have the one human in the middle of the pitch making the decision.

I agree with Lyndon that the offside law was to stop goal hanging – not to make sure you are not a hair's width in front of a defender. In my opinion, there should be daylight between an attacker and defender to be offside. The offside rule will be automated soon anyway, the tech is nearly there, so that won't be far off.

It's all just ripping the fun and joy from us in the name of £££s. Take Calvert-Lewin's red card; yes, it was rescinded, but the damage was done, we don't get compensated for him not being on the pitch, not being able to score for us after the ref said it wasn't even a foul, never mind card or red.

It's deeply rooted now in the game, to question the refs, so it's never going away.

The ball doesn't necessarily have to be touching the quadrant, as long as any part of the ball is overhanging the quadrant, then it's ok.

As for fans on here comparing players from other sports not arguing with referees, they're probably the same fans who complain that our captain and players don't get down the referee's ear enough when a decision goes against us.

Harp on about officials VAR, and goal-line technology all we want but unfortunately, as others on here have alluded to, it was brought in to help the Sly 6, no one else.

Offside was originally invented to prevent opponents from camping near the opposition goal because if they were allowed to, football will be boring because everyone will be punting balls randomly to the front in the hopes someone will score from that.

But now, offsides have been reduced to millimetres. Sure, it follows the rules of football, but really, do you need the VAR to assess that someone has half their shoulder or their thumb offside and rule out the goal? (I'm not exaggerating, it has come to that!)

Penalties. Now penalty winning is way too easy: as long as you somewhat touch the opponent in the box, it is now a penalty. The opponent can “trip” over you touching his leg and it's a penalty. This somewhat destroys the game because now people will dive even more under slight contact in the hopes the VAR will rule in their favour.

You say penalty-winning is way too easy. I think that applies only to certain teams at the top of the league.

Our team seem to find penalty-winning way too hard. Opponents can grapple with our players inside the area without fear of sanction.

It bemuses me that a player can be offside because his thumb is barely beyond the last defender.

I liked the daylight rule, which disappeared. The current one doesn't give the attacker the advantage.

Andy @49, I played Army standard to a high level. Practically semi-professional with getting paid for it!

If you apply the letter of the law, Army referees would instantly red card a player who got in their face and used abusive language.

Believe me, it's a deterrent. It didn't mean we couldn't talk to the officials, but it installed discipline on the pitch.

Talking about officials, I've just remember a random moment. I served with Andy Halliday and we lived close together in Germany. He was our goalkeeper, a decent one too. But in a 6-a-side summer competition, he played out of goal and only went and broke my ankle.

Before he moved on to better things, he used to referee or be on the line for a lot of our matches. I always reminded him of that. Typical goalkeeper trying to play outfield!

Why, when a player is obviously offside, do they allow play to continue?

I can see someone getting needlessly injured, in a play that should have been blown dead moments before.

It's undoubtedly been explained somewhere at length, but I've missed it.

The only reason I can see for the delayed flag is that it's easier to let play continue until a 'natural' end to a move (shot, save, corner, throw-in etc) to allow VAR intervention should it be needed than for a linesman to flag and stop play immediately only for the VAR to intervene and override that decision. For example, if a striker is on a one-to-one with a keeper before an incorrect offside decision, how would you restart play?

However, like you say, if a player is clearly offside when the ball is played and it's obvious to everyone, then why can't they do their job and stop play?

I seem to recall the RS benefitting from it a bit back... perhaps no one actually knows what the latest version of the rule is?

Despite being told to always play to the whistle, players have got used to also playing to the flag. So an incorrect flagging would result in attacks stopping prematurely and the VAR can't give a goal for a chance that never developed.

The not flagging is completely understandable from the linesman's point of view. Why do you job when the VAR can do it for you?

I think the game you refer to was the Liverpool v Wolves cup game last season. As a cross came over, Salah was miles offside, and a Wolves defender attempted to head the ball away, but only succeeded in heading the ball backwards, and it fell nicely for Salad to score.

Funnily enough, this was also the same game where Wolves had a winner chalked off from a corner, or rather a cleared corner played back to the corner taker, who crossed again and someone scored. The corner taker was deemed to be offside by the linesman on the far side, though how he could see god knows, but the VAR couldn't give a decision because apparently they didn't have a camera angle on the corner taker when it was cleared back to him, so they went on the word of the linesman.

What a crock of shit!!

Last minute equaliser for Everton – yes, I was fully expecting a VAR intervention. Although the game finished over a week ago, I wouldn't be surprised if it still was (another special rule change just for Everton – a bit like the penalty simulation ban only ever used against an Everton player, then quietly dropped).

It is PGMOL front and center that is the problem. They are allowed to run the technology and infect what could be a useful tool and infect what they see with their own bias. Referees are almost completely unaccountable for their own decisions and strut around with arrogance and self-importance.

They have become stars of the game in their own mind.
It is always a PGMOL member interjecting themselves into the game, disrupting the natural rhythm of the sport. The VAR has never actually never made a call or stopped a game for an ungodly amount of time; it is always a human being who almost every fan suspects of being perhaps a little bent who are destroying this once beautiful game.

I believe that disastrous Richard Masters, who has demonstrated that he knows dick all about this game and who clearly is biased toward the big clubs so treats everyone else as fodder, is ultimately to blame for this other mess. He is a curse and must be gone.

Referees need to be publicly rated and must be fireable. Good proven refs could be hired on a merit basis from other leagues. PGMOL is doing an absolutely terrible job and the league's contract with them should be ended. Their members could reapply but they would be subject to public performance rating and as with the clubs themselves subject to promotion or relegation if they don't meet reasonable standards.

Keep up the good work. The ToffeeWeb podcast now that is posting so close to the games had just been brilliant for all things Everton and I really do encourage listening in.

Everyone who does at the moment knows there is someone in Stockley Park poring over the last 2 minutes, desperate to find a minor infraction so he can show his mates how clever he was and disallow it.

We managed to cope with human fallibility for the last 140 years without riots; I'd infinitely prefer a return to a VARless world. It's not an exaggeration to say VAR has ruined the game as a spectacle for me, and I'm sure many others.

Please refer to Rob's final sentence @58, for confirmation!

For years we have begged for ‘consistency' from referees.
To achieve consistency, the game has been reduced to black and white decisions. Any contact in the box, however minimal, is a penalty.

I would personally forgo consistency for the application of common sense. Allow the ref to call it as they see it. VAR should only intervene in extreme situations.

If a referee gives a try, that's it, if he made a mistake, that's down to the ref himself, but most instances he will ask to review it and say either I have a try, or I have no try, then the big screen will show 8 different angle freeze-frames, he will then say "Camera 4 has a good angle, play that." He may even decide he needs another angle, then you get to see the replay on the big screen, slow-mo and zoom, the fans in the stadium can watch it.

The farce with VAR is you do not get to see anything on the big screen, unless you get a rare treat or seeing a still and some lines.

Even those of you who do not follow rugby league, it's worth giving up 20 minutes of your time if nothing else, to watch how good the rugby league technology is.

I watched some shocking decisions this weekend with no explanation.

I hope I don't see any tomorrow.

I'll keep saying it. It isn't the technology. It's the standard of officials and the implementation.