A debate is currently occurring about if it would be better to scrap VAR now of risk people turning off the sport due to time delays and bizarre decisions VAR Is making.
A debate is currently occurring about if it would be better to scrap VAR now of risk people turning off the sport due to time delays and bizarre decisions VAR Is making.
I believe this anti-VAR narrative is coming from groups interested in a return to the days of rampant bullshit decisions, and you can all speculate as to why that would be something that anyone would be want.
The fact is that we get more decisions right because of VAR, and should be working to improve the process in order to lessen the negative impacts it is having, which are still better than the negative impacts that wrong decisions have on the sport.
Everytime I see someone say they think VAR should go, I try to remind them of the days of blatant dives in the box being rewarded with penalties. Yes, VAR is far from perfect, but I don’t have to watch my team get punished for 100% blatant dives
It is kind of funny to me, people talk about letting the officials officiate the game… they still are but they’re still getting it wrong with VAR and it is hardly the systems fault that someone looks at a foul or an offside and still doesn’t get it right. Going back doesn’t change much, people will still not like referees decisions and they will still cost teams dearly.
That’s one of the main reasons that I want to scrap or drastically reduce the use of VAR though. No matter what, football officiating is somewhat subjective and is done by fallible humans. No matter if it’s happening on the field or in a VAR booth, it’s still subjective humans making the decision, and some will still be wrong or be perceived as wrong by many fans.
VAR comes with very real drawbacks - long stoppages of play, not being able to get caught up in the moment and celebrate goals, not knowing what is going on as a fan in the stadium. If it truly led to better officiating and less controversy, then I think it would be worth having a discussion around if the benefits outweighed the costs. As things stand, I think we’re getting the worst of both worlds, and I don’t see VAR improving enough to make that not the case.
I think pro VAR people think that there is some magic tweak to the system that will allow us to have consistently perfect decisions, but I just don’t think that goal is realistic. The inherent subjectivity of calls is always going to leave room for controversy.
Statistically though it does technically reduce the mistakes, the issue is that they even still make them and in many of those cases they weren’t even on subjective ones.
My personal hangup with VAR is around the rule that contact = foul and if they show a freeze frame or a slow mo, it removes the context altogether.
I don’t think anything will ever stop people not liking decisions or consistency because there will always be subjective ones and people will always remember the bad ones especially against their own teams. But again that happened with general refereeing, people remember the hand of god, the Lampard goal against Germany and the Henry handball against Ireland. VAR would arguably have caught all those.
It’s coming from people who have watched football for 2 years which is 99% of the posters on this subreddit.
Nope. Disagree entirely.
The Champions league system for offsides is impeccable.
Rugby have an excellent system for helping with decisions.
The length of time for decisions, lack of transparency, poor running, lack of communication, the inconsistencies from what is and what isn’t a foul is completely broken.
They were so heavily criticised, and instead of responding, they just fine anyone who complains.
They’re their own worst enemy. I have no idea how it’s been implemented so poorly that people would rather go back to none at all due to the lack of want to improve.
It’s pathetic, it’s too long, it’s adding 10+ minutes to games with overtime.
What they need to do.
Have cameras on either side of pitch on rails keeping with last man at all times.
Miked up people making decisions, replays in the stadium showing exactly what happened with audio of the decision.
Much better software for offside, goal tech etc.
More camera angles in the box to detect penalties.
CONSISTENCY. Players should be afraid to dive.
The current lot aren’t up to it. Heads need to roll and training has to be prioritised.
As opposed to rampant bullshit decisions made with the help of multiple views, at least with no VAR there is an excuse, but take the Everton United game, clear cut penalty was given by VAR the ref gave a dive… that’s correct, but it’s been giving penalties for absolute nonsense as well