VAR - For or Against

[Frozen Horse]

I would only use it for offsides and also keep the goal line technology for uncertain goal mouth scrambles like last night in the el classico. Any other decisions are open to interpretation and inconsistency even with VAR.

My problem with its use in offside is I think the offside rule is now implemented in a way that was never intended when it was first introduced.
I felt yesterday's decision was in the letter of the law, but not the spirit of it.

Had yesterday's goal stood, then later it had been identified as offside, I'd still have placed the blame on the defenders, not the officials. There was no advantage gained by the attacking team by a toe nail being offside.

 

[B_G]

I'm not convinced that anyone thinks the non-VAR version of the game is perfect.

Do you realise how ignorant you are coming across?

 

[Redwurzel]

At present I would get rid of it and just keep goal line technology.

Instantly celebrating a goal is the best moment of watching a game in the stadium and VAR has taken some of that enjoyment away. For VAR to work decisions need to be made almost instantly.

 

[NYboro]

I'm not convinced that anyone thinks the non-VAR version of the game is perfect. That's not the same as a binary yes/no vote on whether VAR is good or not. It has already been accepted on other threads that it is the waiting around that is the problem and not the decisions themselves.

Also, 50 people on a messageboard with an average age of watched their first world cup in black and white, for a club that has never even played in a league with VAR, isn't particularly valid as a representative sample.

No-one's saying it's perfect without VAR. Just a damn sight better than with it!

 

[MickaelDebevePhenomenal]

Do you think the rule has become more complex BECAUSE of VAR?
To me, it's now so complex that it's almost impossible to apply in real time. I suspect it would not have been so altered if it weren't for VAR.

Very good point, the revision of the rules (to my memory at least) coincided with the implementation of VAR.

 

[The Card Cheat]

I'm not convinced that anyone thinks the non-VAR version of the game is perfect. That's not the same as a binary yes/no vote on whether VAR is good or not. It has already been accepted on other threads that it is the waiting around that is the problem and not the decisions themselves.

Also, 50 people on a messageboard with an average age of watched their first world cup in black and white, for a club that has never even played in a league with VAR, isn't particularly valid as a representative sample.

Almost two thirds of football fans oppose VAR, survey finds

The FSA heard from 9,645 fans in March and April

www.independent.co.uk

VAR: YouGov survey finds 67 per cent of fans say Video Assistant Referees make the game less enjoyable

Supporters give the technology an average rating of 4/10. Full coverage of YouGovs VAR survey on Sky Sports digital and Sky Sports News

www.skysports.com

The 2023 VAR survey results - Scottish Football Supporters Association - SFSA

The SFSA's initial VAR survey, carried out during last year’s World Cup, produced pretty unequivocal results. At that time, VAR had only been in place for a few months but fans, in general, were not very happy with what they had seen up to that point. Following on from this, the SFSA has...

scottishfsa.org

You’re right 50 fan’s isn’t valid as a representative sample.

So there’s three independent surveys of tens of thousands of fans who’s clubs have experienced VAR, they all overwhelmingly show fans don’t like VAR.

 

[Smoggle]

Disliked the idea before it came in and hated it since it was implemented. It’s not the sole reason I barely pay attention to football outside of Boro anymore, but it’s certainly contributed.

 

[t4tomo]

My problem with its use in offside is I think the offside rule is now implemented in a way that was never intended when it was first introduced.
I felt yesterday's decision was in the letter of the law, but not the spirit of it.

Had yesterday's goal stood, then later it had been identified as offside, I'd still have placed the blame on the defenders, not the officials. There was no advantage gained by the attacking team by a toe nail being offside.

Agree, it used to be that you had to stay level with the last defender. The Coventry player was level, but the rules have been changed specifically so VAR have a strict definition so now its no part of the attackers body can be nearer the goal than the defender.

Video replays work really well in Rugby (union and league) cricket - where umpires call ruling has been good a keeping the judgement of umpire at the time relevant- and hockey (where its only used as limited challenges per team) but football have managed to **** it up quite badly.

 

[h_m_boro]

Also, 50 people on a messageboard with an average age of watched their first world cup in black and white, for a club that has never even played in a league with VAR, isn't particularly valid as a representative sample.

Cheeky get!!

I'll have you know my first world cup was in glorious technicolour, Espana 1982.

Wish we'd have had VAR for our U10s team. Last week clear handball leading to goal, this week opposing little sh* kicked then elbowed one of our players in the box at a corner........so yeah SMJF - let's get it sorted!!!!

 

[Redwurzel]

Agree, it used to be that you had to stay level with the last defender. The Coventry player was level, but the rules have been changed specifically so VAR have a strict definition so now its no part of the attackers body can be nearer the goal than the defender.

Video replays work really well in Rugby (union and league) cricket - where umpires call ruling has been good a keeping the judgement of umpire at the time relevant- and hockey (where its only used as limited challenges per team) but football have managed to **** it up quite badly.

Rugby and Cricket are more stop/start games that generally run at a slower pace.

 

[Nano]

Almost two thirds of football fans oppose VAR, survey finds

The FSA heard from 9,645 fans in March and April

www.independent.co.uk

VAR: YouGov survey finds 67 per cent of fans say Video Assistant Referees make the game less enjoyable

Supporters give the technology an average rating of 4/10. Full coverage of YouGovs VAR survey on Sky Sports digital and Sky Sports News

www.skysports.com

The 2023 VAR survey results - Scottish Football Supporters Association - SFSA

The SFSA's initial VAR survey, carried out during last year’s World Cup, produced pretty unequivocal results. At that time, VAR had only been in place for a few months but fans, in general, were not very happy with what they had seen up to that point. Following on from this, the SFSA has...

scottishfsa.org

You’re right 50 fan’s isn’t valid as a representative sample.

So there’s three independent surveys of tens of thousands of fans who’s clubs have experienced VAR, they all overwhelmingly show fans don’t like VAR.

Do you realise how ignorant you are coming across?

National Supporters Survey 2017 launched - Football Supporters' Association

Every few years we hold a national supporters survey to assess the state of the game and its fans – and you can fill in the 2017 National Supporters Survey now.

thefsa.org.uk

Before we had VAR:

• A large majority of supporters agreed that video technology should be used to help referees (79.9%)

Like I said before, nobody knows what they want. There is no consensus. Everyone has contrary opinions and they want something different. Most people are unhappy with the status quo, whatever the status quo is. Give them something different and it should be better or we should go back to how it was when 80% of people thought it wasn't good enough.

Do you think if we got rid of VAR it would stop the complaints? We haven't had VAR in the championship and at least half of our games there is a major decision that the referee gets wrong that everyone complains about. There isn't a solution that satisfies everyone. Everyone remembers major incidents from matches across the years which have decided games or entire competitions that were just wrong.

 

[B_G]

National Supporters Survey 2017 launched - Football Supporters' Association

Every few years we hold a national supporters survey to assess the state of the game and its fans – and you can fill in the 2017 National Supporters Survey now.

thefsa.org.uk

Before we had VAR:

• A large majority of supporters agreed that video technology should be used to help referees (79.9%)

Like I said before, nobody knows what they want. There is no consensus. Everyone has contrary opinions and they want something different. Most people are unhappy with the status quo, whatever the status quo is. Give them something different and it should be better or we should go back to how it was when 80% of people thought it wasn't good enough.

Do you think if we got rid of VAR it would stop the complaints? We haven't had VAR in the championship and at least half of our games there is a major decision that the referee gets wrong that everyone complains about. There isn't a solution that satisfies everyone. Everyone remembers major incidents from matches across the years which have decided games or entire competitions that were just wrong.

You are just discounting people's opinion that is different from yours despite a majority of people disagreeing with your opinion both on this board and in the wider world.

There's differing opinions but there is a majority that don't want it. And that's after seeing it for a number of seasons. Just because you want it, doesn't mean everyone does. Most people feel the negatives outweigh the positives.

You obviously have a real chip on your shoulder about referees. Not everyone else has that same chip. Some of us can accept that referees will get it wrong from time to time. That doesn't mean we won't moan about a decision at times but it does mean that we prefer it to the alternative.

 

[exeterboro]

If they are going to keep VAR then I would like an additional policy implemented where each manager can only call for the use of VAR 3 times individually, unless VAR use highlights a mistake then their count doesn't decrease, and also a 5 second rule where they have to call it's use to the fourth official within a few seconds so it doesn't end up being called after they review footage etc. Cricket has done it to stop the overuse of replays. The continuity and flow of the game in a spectator sport is just as important.

 

[FishofContemplation]

But goal line technology works 99.99% of the time. Absolutely no reason to get rid of that

Does it? Goal line technology is accepted because we don’t see it so we can’t argue with it. There’s no intrinsic reason why it should be more or less accurate than the offside technology that we do argue with because we think we can see it. Same laws of physics apply to the instruments used.

 

[B_G]

Does it? Goal line technology is accepted because we don’t see it so we can’t argue with it. There’s no intrinsic reason why it should be more or less accurate than the offside technology that we do argue with because we think we can see it. Same laws of physics apply to the instruments used.

I think the main reason why people like goal line technology is because it's instant and doesn't affect the spectacle. In fact it probably improves it because we used to have instances of confusion between linesman and referee. Now the ref has a vibrating band and knows instantly that it's crossed the line so can signal immediately.

 

[anth25]

Does it? Goal line technology is accepted because we don’t see it so we can’t argue with it. There’s no intrinsic reason why it should be more or less accurate than the offside technology that we do argue with because we think we can see it. Same laws of physics apply to the instruments used.

Not sure I agree.

The camera's are set in a fixed point in the goals whereas the offside is a moving point somewhere along the length of the pitch. There is no human involvement such as trying to line up the two lines for the offside.

Also we do see it. They always put up a picture of it on the screen once a decision has been made and it is fairly conclusive whether it is over the line or not.

The technology used is very similar to hawkeye that has been used in tennis for years and generally accepted as accurate.

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

My problem with its use in offside is I think the offside rule is now implemented in a way that was never intended when it was first introduced.
I felt yesterday's decision was in the letter of the law, but not the spirit of it.

Had yesterday's goal stood, then later it had been identified as offside, I'd still have placed the blame on the defenders, not the officials. There was no advantage gained by the attacking team by a toe nail being offside.

Cricket have 'umpire's call', not that I'm in support of the use of VAR at all, it's football succumbing to ill thought out TV pressure.

The game is getting on without it in all but one small division of 20 teams.

 

[Nano]

You are just discounting people's opinion that is different from yours despite a majority of people disagreeing with your opinion both on this board and in the wider world.

There's differing opinions but there is a majority that don't want it. And that's after seeing it for a number of seasons. Just because you want it, doesn't mean everyone does. Most people feel the negatives outweigh the positives.

You obviously have a real chip on your shoulder about referees. Not everyone else has that same chip. Some of us can accept that referees will get it wrong from time to time. That doesn't mean we won't moan about a decision at times but it does mean that we prefer it to the alternative.

I'm not discounting anyone's opinions. I am saying that the majority of people that don't want VAR are the same as the majority of people that wanted the referees to have help when they didn't have VAR and if you got rid of VAR the majority would want something to improve and so on.

I think there are a lot of people that watch football that don't understand the rules so they don't even know what they are complaining about. I regularly hear fans sat around me at matches, people's views online etc that don't make any sense. Pundits in the studios get things wrong all the time and they played the game for a living. The presenters are there to stir up controversy and talking points to "drive engagement" and they know what they are doing. People's views are very easily swayed. It's fashionable to complain about VAR.

People still don't seem to understand that VAR is not supposed to get everything correct 100% of the time. It reduces major decisions being called incorrectly.

I don't have a chip on my shoulder about referees. I think on the whole they are not very good at their job. I used to think that seeing the game in real-time meant it was difficult to get decisions correct when things move quickly and the angle/perspective wasn't ideal but then they were given slow motion video replays from several angles and still get things wrong. Referee standards being so low makes VAR less effective because it is the same people operating it. The biggest improvement of VAR or non-VAR football would be a massive increase in the competency of referees. The behaviour of players should be significantly improved as well and they have the ability to improve that by enforcing the laws that already exist but they aren't doing it so that is on them as well. They only have themselves to blame for that.

 

[Muttley]

Does it? Goal line technology is accepted because we don’t see it so we can’t argue with it. There’s no intrinsic reason why it should be more or less accurate than the offside technology that we do argue with because we think we can see it. Same laws of physics apply to the instruments used.

Eh?

The ball must fully cross the plane of the goal. It's a simple rule and it is easy to implement using video technology. Those "laws of physics" dictate that it is a much simpler problem to address with technology. It works instantly, it has thrown the occasional bad error but we can accept that because (and this is the important bit) it is instantaneous and does not interfere with the spectacle/drama.

 

[FishofContemplation]

There’s a fair bit of repetition of the myth that the offside law was changed for VAR. It’s easy to check as the the IFAB publishes an archive of the laws going back about about 30 years. The incessantly tinker with the precise definition of active/interfering, only this year slightly changing the definition of a defender deliberately playing the ball. But they haven’t changed the definition of an offside position for 20 years, which was when they specifically defined that hands and arms didn’t count. Prior to that it hadn’t really changed since the 90s, when they made it nearer to the goal line than the ball and the second last defender. Nearer has always just meant nearer.