Greenlizard0 Premier League Football Thread ** spoilers ** [28th - 30th September 2024]

Re how VAR works, VAR cannot get involved for simply disagreeing with the onfield call. They're only meant to intervene when the decision is clearly and obviously wrong and it's that phrase that results in some of the farcical decisions we see. A qualified official can spend 2 minutes looking at a decision with multiple replays and camera angles and still end up awarding the wrong decision, despite determining that it was the wrong decision, because in their opinion it wasn't quite wrong enough.

As Dale mentions in his article there were 26 incidents last season where the VAR didn't intervene when they should have and it's entirely down to this nonsensical 'clear and obvious' rule. It just confuses the situation and rather than allowing a qualified official to just make the right decision, they're instead having to decide whether the decision was clearly wrong enough, which is of course entirely subjective.
To my mind, the only way of doing it is to allow each side one incorrect challenge per half, plus VAR should deal with offsides and line calls. That way it's the teams who are deciding whether an alleged error is clear and obvious enough for them to risk using their challenge on.
 
Re how VAR works, VAR cannot get involved for simply disagreeing with the onfield call. They're only meant to intervene when the decision is clearly and obviously wrong and it's that phrase that results in some of the farcical decisions we see. A qualified official can spend 2 minutes looking at a decision with multiple replays and camera angles and still end up awarding the wrong decision, despite determining that it was the wrong decision, because in their opinion it wasn't quite wrong enough.

As Dale mentions in his article there were 26 incidents last season where the VAR didn't intervene when they should have and it's entirely down to this nonsensical 'clear and obvious' rule. It just confuses the situation and rather than allowing a qualified official to just make the right decision, they're instead having to decide whether the decision was clearly wrong enough, which is of course entirely subjective.
Personally I don't know why we don't go for the tennis approach, each manager get's 3 calls for VAR in a match/half kind of thing...would be perfect for these situations IMHO - also, while we're at it - a sin bin for kicking the ball away/blatant time wasting please.
 
or just get rid of the 'clear and obvious error' malarky, apply the rules unilaterally and give the 4th official the ability to hand out yellow cards for timewasting - hell make them retroactive cards.
 
or just get rid of the 'clear and obvious error' malarky, apply the rules unilaterally and give the 4th official the ability to hand out yellow cards for timewasting - hell make them retroactive cards.
Only issue might be the time pausing...but then, why not let the game flow while ongoing checks are made and then punishment handed out? Only stops in play for pens, goals or disputed red cards?
 
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Re how VAR works, VAR cannot get involved for simply disagreeing with the onfield call. They're only meant to intervene when the decision is clearly and obviously wrong and it's that phrase that results in some of the farcical decisions we see. A qualified official can spend 2 minutes looking at a decision with multiple replays and camera angles and still end up awarding the wrong decision, despite determining that it was the wrong decision, because in their opinion it wasn't quite wrong enough.

As Dale mentions in his article there were 26 incidents last season where the VAR didn't intervene when they should have and it's entirely down to this nonsensical 'clear and obvious' rule. It just confuses the situation and rather than allowing a qualified official to just make the right decision, they're instead having to decide whether the decision was clearly wrong enough, which is of course entirely subjective.
I've been banging this drum since VAR's inception. The "clear and obvious" thing is ridiculous. It comes from an attempt to by referees to protect the idea that a bad decision made in good faith is somehow less wrong and any challenge questions the integrity of the ref.

It's only referees and idiots with no critical thinking skills that parrot the "We don't want to see the game re-refereed" line. Yes we do. We want to see all the available tools being used, as other sports do, to attempt to reach a correct decision, and when "correct" is a matter of opinion, it should attempt to divide that opinion as equally as possible, not make the arbiter of "truth" one man who's seen something once and only from his POV. Nobody ever said they wanted VAR to do that that other than refs who never wanted it the first place.

The other problem it manifests is refs leaning on their VARs to help them make decisions that they don't have a clear view of, eg penalties that VARs then don't feel they have the authority to step in for. That's a proper crack. And the PGMOL making a mockery of the laws and their own guidance on them with their excuses on Monday morning and on that waste of time Mic'd up thing with Michael Owen where they try to gaslight everyone into agreeing that clearly bad decisions are okay if you look at them a certain way.
 
I've been banging this drum since VAR's inception. The "clear and obvious" thing is ridiculous. It comes from an attempt to by referees to protect the idea that a bad decision made in good faith is somehow less wrong and any challenge questions the integrity of the ref.

It's only referees and idiots with no critical thinking skills that parrot the "We don't want to see the game re-refereed" line. Yes we do. We want to see all the available tools being used, as other sports do, to attempt to reach a correct decision, and when "correct" is a matter of opinion, it should attempt to divide that opinion as equally as possible, not make the arbiter of "truth" one man who's seen something once and only from his POV. Nobody ever said they wanted VAR to do that that other than refs who never wanted it the first place.

The other problem it manifests is refs leaning on their VARs to help them make decisions that they don't have a clear view of, eg penalties that VARs then don't feel they have the authority to step in for. That's a proper crack. And the PGMOL making a mockery of the laws and their own guidance on them with their excuses on Monday morning and on that waste of time Mic'd up thing with Michael Owen where they try to gaslight everyone into agreeing that clearly bad decisions are okay if you look at them a certain way.
I don't agree with this. Most fouls in football are subjective. It's not like cricket where the ball either hits in line and would, with 95%+ accuracy, then go on to hit the stumps. You only have to look at the numerous decisions which are debated every weekend to see how subjective football is.

What is a foul to one referee may not be to another, and that's the unfortunate reality of the sport. You can try to standardise as much as you want, but that will always be the case and there will always be grey areas. Therefore, with VAR, you have the following options:
1. Let the on pitch referee have a look at his decision again on TV. They tried this, nobody seemed impressed by it. It took ages, and the ref almost always second guessed himself and decided that he was wrong.
2. Let another ref review the first ref's decision. But why should the subjective opinion of that second ref take precedence over the opinion of the first ref? Then you are simply "re-refereeing" the game from the perspective of a different person's take on the laws.
3. Only allow a decision to be overturned when the error is clear and obvious. I do not like this solution at all, for the reasons that everyone has set out above. But I think it's better than 1 or 2.
4. My preference is to allow the teams playing the sport to challenge a certain number of decisions per match. I'd then suggest that you have a panel of three refs, one of whom is the on field ref, voting on whether the decision was correct or not.

In short, I agree with your criticism of the "re-refereeing" line, in that I agree that we want to use all of the tools to get to the right result. But to my mind, the "right result" is not just the subjective opinion of person 2 overruling that of person 1 - that is the very definition of re-refereering.
 
Bruno Fernandes will be available for Manchester United's next three matches after having his red card against Tottenham overturned.

United have been successful with their claim of wrongful dismissal.
 
Seems a tad bit ridiculous doesn't it. Ref sends said player off, VAR backs decision/doesnt intervene. Then after the match they decide it's not a red.

EPL officiating really is the worst.
 
Bruno Fernandes will be available for Manchester United's next three matches after having his red card against Tottenham overturned.

United have been successful with their claim of wrongful dismissal.
If only we could have our trouncing overturned, or wrongful extending of ETH’s contract too…
 
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A certain (probably made up) level 6 ref probably needs downgrading. There's absolutely no surprise the decision has been overturned on appeal.
Seems a tad bit ridiculous doesn't it. Ref sends said player off, VAR backs decision/doesnt intervene. Then after the match they decide it's not a red.

EPL officiating really is the worst.
As has been discussed already, the VAR didn't necessarily back the decision, they simply didn't think the decision was wrong enough to overturn.

I don't have much of an issue with the onfield decision being a red - the linesman (who made the decision) is looking at it from an angle that looks bad so you can understand why he thought it was a red. The issue is the application of VAR. Had the VAR been instructed to simply determine whether it was a red or not then I'm sure he'd have overturned the onfield call but by adding 'clear and obvious' to the mix, it confuses things and the VAR is now having to decide whether it was clearly wrong enough to overturn which opens a huge can of worms.
 
Doesn't that imply that they backed it?

No, VAR is trying to get out of the way of referees more this season. Hence unless it was an absolute howler of a decision or there was absolutely no contact they weren't going to tell the referee to do anything. Bruno made contact with Maddisons leg higher enough that it could be a red under certain circumstances.

Yet another instance of "VAR isn't the problem, the people running it are"
 
A certain (probably made up) level 6 ref probably needs downgrading. There's absolutely no surprise the decision has been overturned on appeal.
How very modlike of you :rolleyes:

if that's the standard you are applying to decisions then every professional/ex referee who said it was a penalty after doku studded Mac Allister should get their credentials revoked as the panel agreed no penalty yeah?
 
How very modlike of you :rolleyes:

if that's the standard you are applying to decisions then every professional/ex referee who said it was a penalty after doku studded Mac Allister should get their credentials revoked as the panel agreed no penalty yeah?
I'm not sure I understand the mod comment but it made me laugh anyway.

As for the Mac Allister/Doku incident, if I remember correctly it was a 3-2 split decision by the key match incident panel so that shows you how subjective the decision was, so no.
 
I'm not sure I understand the mod comment but it made me laugh anyway.

As for the Mac Allister/Doku incident, if I remember correctly it was a 3-2 split decision by the key match incident panel so that shows you how subjective the decision was, so no.
and what was the split for the Fernandes appeal?
 
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