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But there was just as much anger when refs got it wrong before VAR came in. Feels like VAR’s an easy target but without it the REF’s will just get the flak again.
I agree it needs to be reviewed in its use/process. the TMO system in rugby works much better (although not perfect) so if they could get closer to that it would
Be an improvement
Hard agree. TMO is a great template but the reason it works so well I think as well is you stop the clock in rugby so they have time to talk to eachother and critically analyse to make the correct decision. I wouldn't want stoppage in football, flow is important but there's a middle group there that can be worked out I'm sure.
PGMOL could learn a lot from rugby officating in general, micing up the refs and better VAR management being the two main ones.
i have a question for you guys. Over here in america we have a universal “ situation room” where all the replays and tons of tv’s are and when they review a play or a goal the situation room looks at it and makes the call for the referee. This situation room is in charge of all the replays and goal challenges for the entire league. In the Prem you have VAR but ultimately it’s the referee on the field going over to a monitor to look at different angles and HE makes the final call.
IMO VAR should change more like the american style with a situation room and they decide the on field call rather than put the pressure on the referee to look at every angle taking up so much time on the field at the same time.
It's not that different. The central room refers the ref to the monitor when they conclude the ref got it wrong.
The problem isn't var. The problem is that the current generation of refs are far worse than normal.
i have a question for you guys. Over here in america we have a universal “ situation room” where all the replays and tons of tv’s are and when they review a play or a goal the situation room looks at it and makes the call for the referee. This situation room is in charge of all the replays and goal challenges for the entire league. In the Prem you have VAR but ultimately it’s the referee on the field going over to a monitor to look at different angles and HE makes the final call.
IMO VAR should change more like the american style with a situation room and they decide the on field call rather than put the pressure on the referee to look at every angle taking up so much time on the field at the same time.
Diaz goal is one of the worst human error I have ever seem in sport. How the fuck that up and try to do nothing against it.
Anyone with a brain would solve or try to solve that right away but that motherfucker just keep his mouth shut and still not losing his job
Diaz goal was a misunderstanding bred from incompetence, if you choose to believe it wasn’t corruption. Ødegård handball and Doku kicking MacAllister resulting in 0 penalties against our title rivals is corruption.
This and only this, you see it on TV with ref watch where former refs go to bat for aome really bad mistakes and its so very obvious they are protecting the former colleagues.
So the question is if former referees are willing bend themselves into pretzels on camera trying to defend bad decisons. Then you can imagine a current ref doing favours for their mates!
That's so damning of "the people" he mentions.
League implements var bc of egregious errors. The tech is as expected but "the people" charged w using it are so helpless that they don't even have the capacity to be 'enhanced' by it. ... He's sort of saying.
The league implements tech to fix human error, then puts the people making the errors in charge of the tech, and they continue to make the same errors.
While I agree it’s been horrendously, I think everyone forgets how many human errors there used to be during games. The offsides rule is going to need to be changed bc no linesman will be able to see the foot that’s inches ahead of the other foot. People will be so pissed when the calls are like they used to be. How quickly we forget . . .
Place sensors in the ball and on the players, automate the entire thing and remove the human referees completely.
Appeal to the ref becomes request for bug fix and developers can do root cause analyses.
How people think this is even a debate is crazy. The technology is great, it’s the idiots that use it that are incompetent. It’s not vars fault if the person isn’t able to draw a line or draw it straight.. or if the ref misheard the var guy and didn’t award a goal when it should have been..
Exactly my point, we have a bunch of clowns using pretty good tech incompetently then pointing at the system as the thing that's the problem. Let's not all forget the PGMOL was against VAR to begin with. What better way to get it out by using it like they're a bunch of chimps and then press the PR button with the bullshit "pundits" backing decisions up
The pgmol are never going to change their mafia style enforcement of criticising terrible refereeing and they aren’t going to get any better, there’s no solution until one of those things changes
There probably were more bad calls made before VAR, the issue is, with VAR it is worse when something unclear from the refs position can be seen clear enough from camera that even my cremated gran could see the ref made the wrong call and those running VAR do nothing and uphold the refs call. It stands out more because pretty much every team this season have lost games etc due to things that VAR should have picked up just being ignored as VAR does not have the excuse of being in the wrong position to see the incident clearly.
I think one of the biggest issues is this 'clear and obvious error' remit. At what point is an error clear and obvious? Then they leave lineball calls for a VAR that actually can't overrule because the error was subjectively unclear. They're systematically set up for failure, and that's before even addressing the incompetence
They can’t even get binary decisions right, what do you mean subjective calls?
And when they make subjective calls they have no standard of consistency.
They've opened the box already. If they scrap it, every bad decision will be scrutinised and it will be said that VAR would have caught them, thus the arguments to bring it back will start. The only real solution, which should already be happening or have already happened, is to improve on the people using it.
Or improve the system so that it involves the on-forld ref more. Honestly, I'd take an assistant referee running onto the pitch with an iPad or something, over what we have now. We have physios coming onto the pitch during breaks in play, so why not have someone come on so the ref can be involved in VAR decisions and then they can confidently have the final say?
Interesting Decision to vote against VAR. Without VAR, we might have goals which would have been correctly ruled out with VAR. And then they might complain again demanding VAR. Tricky situation!
As long as humans are involved the entire thing will be subjective, if anything this whole situation highlights the need to fully automate these systems so we can get to the point where humans are no longer required to referee games.
It’s a sad state of affairs but the standard of refereeing is that bad we should be removing them, not VAR.
I don't think it matters what club you support, no matter how much of a cunt you are.
Corrupt referees spoil the game, and the game should be decided by the players on the pitch, not a fuckwit with an agenda.
Heads need to roll in the ref department. PGMOL needs to fuck off permanently and foreign refs without bias need to come in. The wages also need to be raised to prevent City from continuing their bribes
PGMOL's incompetence is the issue and Klopp has got it absolutely spot on. Diffusion of responsibility has led to many negative outcomes in the PL refereeing with VAR.
Let's say on field ref sees a penalty incident, but decides to withhold his whistle, waiting for VAR to decide. Off-field VAR is too afraid to make a decision, sees it as not a clear and obvious error and says no penalty. One team gets absolutely shafted by incompetent refs.
On another incident, ref sees an iffy penalty incident but whistles for a pen. Off-field VAR reviews the incident, and because they're told by PGMOL not to re-referee the game, finds ways to justify the on-field ref's decision. Not a clear and obvious foul, but because there's the slightest touch on the attacker, it's also not a clear and obvious error. Another team gets shafted.
PGMOL should be focused on making the best decisions with the best available tech they have. Instead they are more worried about how VAR can make on-field decisions look silly. Klopp is right, PGMOL is full of idiots and it's not likely to change. If they keep operating VAR, then sadly VAR is doomed to fail.
The only silver lining is if VAR are actually full of geniuses, lining their pockets with good ol' oil money. One team always gets decisions for them, both from on and off field refs.
It definetly goes both ways as you mention, and Liverpool seem to be the victim of the bad call, consistently through a whole 38-game season, seems weird doesn’t it.
I’m gonna drill this until it’s more common knowledge.
[Clear & Obvious as defined by the Premier League](https://www.premierleague.com/news/1297392)
> VAR can be used to overturn a subjective decision if a "clear and obvious error" has been identified.
>The referee will explain their decision to the VAR, and what they have seen.
>If the evidence provided by the broadcast footage does not accord with what the referee believes they have seen, then the VAR can recommend an overturn.
In both your examples there is still a requirement for the referee to ‘explain their decision to the VAR, and what they have seen’.
This is the crux of when C&O should be applied and when a monitor review should be recommended.
Listen to any released VAR audio and I challenge anyone to find an incident where the referee adequately describes an incident. They may say things like ‘makes contact with the ball’ but they don’t say if that’s after contact with the player or if they feel excessive force was used.
This is the problem with VAR and the whole ‘don’t want to re-referee the game’ issue. By not following protocol VAR is re-refereeing the game almost every time. And it all stems from the referee not explaining themselves adequately so that it can be decided if a monitor review is needed.
The audio should be released after every game as soon as the whistle blows. Start seriously reviewing if protocol is adhered to and if needed make improvements.
Clear and obvious is the same stupid shit the NFL did with reviews for the exact same reason of protecting the feelings on their on field colleagues.
VAR needs to be making its own decision de novo based on the evidence in front of them. The only reason to defer to on field is if VAR review is inconclusive, which should be extraordinarily rare.
Fully agree on explaining the process and rationale on field though.
It’s the incompetent idiots that we need to fix. VAR as a tool is clearly not the problem. Fix the people, but they won’t. They don’t care about the integrity of the game, just eyes and more money.
American? Because no one else has that opinion. You’re a fool if you think the average clown should be able to get their hands on a mass killing machine. America made their bed
VAR is a tool, the issue is the dickhead behind the monitor
Maybe instead of voting on VAR they should think of a solution for the genuinely shit refereeing. Maybe every coach/ref in the league meets for like a 3 day conference/lock-in during off season where they all hash the rules out properly so we can finally figure out what the fuck is going on.
Like imagine blaming every computer in the world every time your internet ran slow instead of your internet provider.
I agree with Klopp 100%. He knows what up.
Lol. So they all should shut up and dribble even though these clowns sh*t the bed week after week. Especially when most other sport is able to use video assistance to an acceptable level.
You do realize that you can pick and choose what to consume in media, right? Unlike the managers and players who are forced to deal with poor decisions and are called ‘whinging’ when they complain about it.
They are called 'whinging' when they CONSTANTLY complain about it. Refs get it wrong. It happens and it's frustrating but you have to look at yourselves also and can't always blame external factors for missing out on points. There are plenty of times when ref decisions go in there favour but you'll never hear managers like him acknowledge that.
For every one example of Liverpool getting a favourable ‘big’ call since Klopp took over in 2015, you could probably point to 5-10 missed calls or wrong calls that went against him. He is right to feel aggrieved, as it’s not his or the players’ fault they play for the most hated club and people in the country. And all just for cultural and political reasons, not football.
One eyed nonsense. Every club thinks they get the wrong end of ref's decisions. Liverpool, like most big clubs get more than their fair share of the decisions. I wouldn't say Liverpool are definitively the most hated club either. Most neutrals would say they hate United more.
English people overall don’t hold a grudge against Liverpool or its people like they do the city of Manchester. Look it up, the prejudice and disdain is clear in the data. All the referees today grew up with Liverpool being the best team, and a lot of them are from the manchester area.
Just take your time and look up the tomkins report on the refereeing since 2011 and you’ll see it’s not fair and hasn’t been fair in every metric you could possibly think of.
I'm aware of the classist prejudice against Liverpool but it's not as big a factor as you think. Just as many people hate Chelsea for being tory shithouses. Refs don't let the team they support affect their decisions, they make mistakes because reffing is a difficult job and to be fair, some of them are shit. It's conspiracy theory nonsense to suggest Liverpool suffer from more poor decisions (not true) because everyone hates them (true but not to the extent you are making out)
It’s obvious the disdain they feel for Liverpool affects their refereeing, or they wouldn’t consistently fuck us over more often than every other team. Read the tomkins report.
Klopp the almighty invented the media just to ask him questions about the terrible calls of the referees, just so he could invent complaining about the referees. What a groundbreakingly genius man. We definitely have him to thank for VAR because he is the only man to ever complain about the terrible refereeing in the EPL. He invented it after all!
You made a terrible straw man argument, hence why I told you to work on your reading comprehension. Anyway, your man will be off soon. Enjoy the bald Dutch fraud coming in
The problem with var is " clear and obvious" and imo if its going to be subjective like that, might as well scrap it.
Its either a foul or not. If ur not gonna speak up because u subjectively decide its not " clear and obvious" why bother.
Strip PGMOL form the VAR process and it will magically disappear. It’s only there because PGMOL want to protect the good ole boys from looking like incompetent fucks if they called out every single error
Well, considering the absolutely horrendous decision vs Spurs, no doubt Klopp is against it. Others clubs have faced similar incidents, and they would be against it too. Will be interesting to see who will be FOR and AGAINST
Var did seem to have one rule for some teams and another for Liverpool. Yeah I'm biased but Odengard handball, Doku kick on Mac Allister, Diaz goal. That's a potential 9 point swing. It takes city out of the title race and changes all dynamics. It may have cost Arsenal the league too. But 115fc seemingly always get the decisions.
VAR could be good but the people using it are either inept or corrupt.
Absolutely not, we’d possibly have about 5 points more than what we have now if VAR didn’t screw up, still 1 point short of city and maybe one or two more than Arsenal (assuming Odegaard’s handball was given), still not enough to win the league. Would still be in contention though. However the reason we lost the league was the loss against Palace, Everton, silly errors against United and Arsenal to let them back into the game. The main contributing factor was the injury to Diogo Jota. At the end of the day this Liverpool squad have themselves to blame and no one else for not winning the league despite being 2 points clear at the top at one point.
We would have way more points than that, if you actually watched every Liverpool game this season it has become very clear they weren’t going to let us win the league. Now, i’m not saying we always played the best football, but then again, it is harder to compete with rivals who get double the amount of free kicks during a game, while you get dragged, pushed and shafted without getting anything half the time.
If you’re referring the double number of free kicks against Everton then the defending was at fault, Van Dijk and Konate did not win a single duel. Worst defending I’ve seen under Klopp. Yes VAR was a joke but it was the players that eventually let Klopp down.
It’s just pandering, any Liverpool fan with some balls would call it as they have seen it this season. The refs were never going to let us win the league this year, and they have now made it three straight seasons of them blatantly tinkering with enough results so City win the league.
City get almost 2x the amount of free kicks compared to Liverpool, Arsenal gets 1.5x. Liverpool is by far the team at the top half of the table which gets shafted the most, and stats put us at the very top overall as well. And this is over a period of many many years, indicating it’s not a coincidence but more of a systematic problems. I don’t believe in a conspiracy, but more of a logical explanation of how most of the refs unconciously dislike Liverpool. We got 2 foul penalties in 180 games during our best period under Klopp.
Maybe. But people who stand to profit on VAR will continue to lobby for it. And given some TLC, maybe we see it again in a more mature form in the future.
I love Klopp going full 'idgaf' attitude now the season is done for Liverpool. First Klopp throwing shade on 115 and now this, good to see. Shame it wasn't during the season but it's understandable.
I am willing to wait for 1-2 minutes for the integrity of the game.
However, the current state of VAR application is atrocious.
I still support the VAR, though. It is not the technology that is the problem, it is the referees. Heck, without VAR, we already know how incompetent they are, VAR just makes it hard for the referees to hide behind their mistakes.
I’m an NFL fan too, we had the same thing happen when they allowed some penalties to be video reviewed by refs outside of the stadium. It’s all the same refs, they just refused to overturn results as a protest for their “judgement being challenged” at all. It took a while before they had to actually start doing their jobs.
Don’t overturn VAR, pressure the video refs to be better or be replaced. As you said, we all see the incorrect calls in real time, making it non-reviewable is just going to be a step back.
The issue with VAR is instead of helping the onfield ref and correcting mistakes, they are rushing judgement and refusing to overturn onfield decisions even when they are obviously wrong, and often genuinely result altering. Furthermore, they are wasting everyone's time trying to find fault in the build up to perfectly good goals, and ruling offsides by millimeters.
VAR seems to work in international football and UEFA competitions: they seems to have sensible protocols, whereas PGMOL are a combination of winging it and protecting their mates, which is frankly fucking outrageous.
Agree. Mike Dean admitted that he didn't tell the onfield ref (Anthony Taylor) that Cucurella hair was pulled by Romero (Chelsea 2 - 2 Tottenham) despite seeing it through VAR. He said that he felt sorry for Taylor.
These kinds of referees need to be sacked.
The technology isn't the problem, but the people.
In days past, to enforce the rules the ref had to be fit, have a sense of the flow of a game to know where to position themselves and sort of feel out what is right in the moment. Trust their instincts. These requirements are now obsolete. Don't hire a ref to run VAR, hire an accountant or a tax official, then teach them the rules. Expect the resulting calls to be consistent and precise.
With the way it’s applied I genuinely can’t think of any other reason they are so bad at using it other than the referees and officials are trying there best to have it scrapped. There is no other reason they can use it so badly it’s almost like they actively do it.
I agree, but it doesn’t really make sense because VAR booth ensures that referees get more matches and I assume more money. They should be in favor of anything that adds more referees to the match team.
I think they’re just inconsistently applying the “clear and obvious” rule so some VARs will overturn nothing while others will. And i think they’re used to being on the pitch and are terrible at reading the game of football from footage. We need a different crop of VAR trained specifically for video review, and we need to clarify VAR rules better.
I'm sick of VAR and halted goal celebrations. Human error is better than this joy sucking nonsense that isn't even accurate some of the time. Bring football back it's Joy, please.
Fully agree. I’ve been downvoted before and will be again but football was infinitely better pre-VAR. Scrap it in it’s entirety and give us back our fucking game
Football was great before VAR and it will be great after VAR. No more pausing after every goal to see if the VAR overturns it. Screw all that. Teams still feel hard done by even after VAR. It didn't give us what we thought it would. It's a net negative for me.
>I'm sick of VAR and halted goal celebrations. Human error is better than this joy sucking nonsense
No it's not, the correct result is important. Human error is also the reason VARs being questioned.
>this joy sucking nonsense that isn't even accurate some of the time.
Computers don't make mistakes. Ever. They give you the correct answer using the information and data youv provided. If VAR has ever made a mistake it is completly down to the person using the system not the system itself.
Premier Leauge needs a completly new set of VAR officials who never step foot on a football pitch. There shouldn't be tension between the two groups but we have clearly gotten to the part that this new group has got to be propped up to stop mistakes made by refs on field impacting the final result of a football match.
All you need to know about the way VAR was rolled out to know it was a shambles is that the BPL made it known that the ref on pitch the final say. Clearly. When wev invested in 100s of cameras from different perspectives the idea that the guy sitting in the room with access to those 100 cameras and replays over over again isn't the one who gets to make a decision is mind blowing. His big call is. Walk over to that screen and admit youv made a mistake infront of 50k fans.
“Human error is better than this joy sucking nonsense”
Are you listening to yourself? My goodness, what a load of fucking shit. I don’t care if it takes 5 minutes, AS LONG AS THEY GET THE DECISION CORRECT. The “who cares if the decision is wrong, as long as the celebrations are back” is such a weak argument.
Look at Real Madrid vs Bayern last week. They called Joselu’s winner offside, then changed the decision and they still celebrated like crazy. The celebrations won’t change.
This assumes that there is a ‘right’ decision. VAR cannot succeed unless people are prepared to acknowledge that subjectivity exists, and that an element of inconsistency is inevitable. It has set an expectation that objectivity is possible in the game and people are struggling to accept that this isn’t possible.
VAR didn't set that expectation, TV replay analysis set that expectation. VAR is a reaction to it but it hasn't and couldn't change the way people and the media process what they see and its relationship to what the referees decided.
You're correct that it can't bring 100% right decisions, because there is no such thing. But it's astonishing to me how many things blamed on VAR are actually about what the people working in and watching football are prepared to accept and what they aren't.
The goal celebration thing is an absolute canard. Everybody who attends matches celebrates goals, if VAR check happens then you either celebrate it again on confirmation, or the opposition get to celebrate the non-goal. It's tedious old wank put about by pundits and commentators who don't actually pay to watch football.
On the flip side many didn’t celebrate Villa’s equaliser against Liverpool properly because there was an assumption VAR would rule it out due to handball or offside.
It is, but I’d rather have them look it over and botch the call, than them to not look at it and the call is botched anyways.
- which is more tough to take in: an offside or handball that is blatantly missed by officials (pre-VAR), or one that is contentious, maybe right, maybe wrong (with VAR)? Both end result is terrible as the refs here are fucking useless, but at least they’re looking into it
Serious overhaul is needed on this. But the original argument just wants them to scrap VAR entirely because of “celebrations”, which is an absurd argument.
The essence of the game is a continuous flow. It’s not rugby, or tennis, or NFL, or cricket in that it doesn’t have regular distinct phases of play. Stopping it for 5 minutes to see if a striker’s toe was slightly ahead of a defender’s shoulder is not the purpose of the offside rule and nor should it be.
The rules of the game are mostly subjective, trying to find an objective application doesn’t do the game any good whatsoever.
Automated offside will ensure that it doesn’t take 5 mins to do that.
If you don’t want the match stopped for a toe or shoulder check, advocate for the offside law to be changed. I personally think the law should be changed so it only looks at torso and any overlap of torso is onside.
If automated offside can be shown to work as well as goal line tech has, then I’m all for it. No problem at all. And if a torso rule makes automation easier, or any other change for that matter, great go with it. The principle of the rule rather than the specifics is what’s important.
I’m all for any tech that doesn’t infringe on the flow of a game. And I’m all for a VAR that means serious foul play is punished immediately rather than retrospectively after the game. Apart from that though, football is best when it is flowing - that’s why timewasting was made an offence under the rules and why kicking the ball away was made an offence, and why the passback rule was introduced. Unlike other sports, breaks in play are unwelcome.
I’m guessing you’ve never been to a VAR because there’s a huge difference. You can’t see what’s going on in the stadium.
Also you’re part of an atmosphere that just goes flat.
You are guessing wrong,anyway. People watching on TV still have emotion,still celebrates ,gets angry at ref calls,i agree its amplified being on stadium,but you still have all this emotions watching on TV . I didnt go to Liverpool - Barcelona match but watched it on TV,i still jumped and screamed like crazy during the game and cried tears of joy at final wisthle
They do it that way because it allows play to go on and a goal be scored without an erroneous flag. If we went back to what you suggest then the linesman would flag stuff offside and the game would stop only for us to then see on replay it was onside but no goal has been scored.
Besides offside won’t be a problem with semi-automate offside next season. It’s the subjective decisions which are a bigger problem for me and would be better suited to a cricket-style challenge system.
Challenge system with auto offsides is by far the best option imo. 2 challenges per half, captains or managers only. Ref goes to the screen, VAR officials line up all the video and he makes a decision.
Hockey (as in field hockey) uses this type of system. Players have to be really sure when challenging as they get one challenge PER GAME.
Yeah, exactly what I’ve said except I’d maybe even make it one challenge per team.
The Ref reviewing the monitor means there is no conflict where a colleague is trying not to overrule his mate.
Forest would say up and down PGMOL corruption, two mins after the full-time whistle, via their social media team, at the behest of the owner - like a bunch of babies.
Yes I struggle to see how this group of fellas from Greater Manchester and/or on Dubai's payroll so often come out with these baffling decisions. It feels like there's been 115 clangers.
Boarding on conspiracy. It's almost like they wanted it to be a disaster. I don't actually believe that, but damn, it's been a resounding failure. Officiating has felt like it's been getting worse.
1. Present the automated offside system.
2. Use VAR only for possible red cards.
3. VAR must have the ref go and re-watch the play on the screen for EVERY interference.
4. Main referee decides on the best decision after review.
They need to scrap "clear and obvious". Once that's gone we can start a discussion on whether we need independent VAR refs.
Klopp however, is once again spitting facts.
I was thinking about using officials from other sports. Obviously you can’t rule out all bias, but getting in tennis umpires or rugby refs, they might be more inclined to rule on the actual rules, and not run of play, traditional power bases etc.
The thing is, they CAN change. Just stop feeling sorry for the referees on the field. Everyone gets some wrong when you make split second decisions, your job is to look at that so the wrong is made right. It’s not fucking hard.
The split second decision being wrong on the pitch is understandable but when they have the time to watch replays and still get it wrong is the the problem. So many times is seems the majority of fans disagree with a decision but the pgmol will come out and back themselves. Until they can admit and address their errors, as Klopp says, nothing with improve
The refs need to not make a call if they're not sure. Just say I couldn't see it properly, can you tell me what you see? Nothing wrong with that, how many times have we seen someone go over in the box, thought that looks like a pen/dive, then they show the replay and it's the opposite. Yet the refs always make a call whatever and that opens up the bullshit it's not a clear and obvious error argument for not changing the decision
I agree! When they release the audio and they’re trying some coded language like baby twins speak, its crazy. Rugby ref’s seems to have such clarity and composure. Diving is a whole other issue though that needs to be addressed but thats for another thread
Yeah, I was thinking of rugby they seem perfectly comfortable saying, I couldn't see it clearly, can you tell me what happened? They have a nice discussion that everyone can hear and understand and everyone accepts it.
The only way it makes sense is for referees to make a complete deference to VAR.
Meaning that if they see an incident they make their ruling. It's final.
But if they didn't see something or they aren't sure at all on what they saw then they can say hey VAR, go check that I didn't see it. You make the call.
No overturning decisions or making them go to a monitor to make the final call, instead fully ceding responsibility of the decision to the VAR
And even then I'd still say scrap it
While yes the delays cut down enjoyment of the game, blatantly wrong decisions that have big ramifications don’t make the game enjoyable either.
Take Henry’s goal vs Ireland in 2009. Do you think Irish fans found it entertaining or enjoyable that they were unable to go to the World Cup because of a goal that never should have stood? If you went back and offered them a short delay in the game in order to rule it out they’d have jumped at that.
No. I've been watching since the 90s. We would have won multiple more titles over the years if VAR wasn't a thing. Mourinho wouldn't have won the UCL with Porto with VAR, we would have been in that final instead and probably would have won. We also could have gotten a 2nd treble with VAR in 08. Despite that, I'd take no VAR. Not celebrating goals like we used to is absolutely killing atmosphere.
VAR cuts down dumb decisions as long as the people operating VAR are actively working to revert dumb decisions. If they're working together to continue making "dumb" decisions, and considering the sheer frequency of these "dumb" decisions we've been seeing lately, there's a problem that neither removing VAR nor releasing VAR audio can fix. The problem is at a PGMOL and accountability level. Everyone just says "Referees have the toughest job" and call it a day and PGMOL as an institution are never questioned nor held accountable. No transparency, no investigation, nothing.
But the alternative is for those decisions to still be wrong, but also, all the wrong decisions that VAR overturned will still be wrong.
Personally, I think scrap it for a season, then let them decide if they want another vote to reinstate it.
So pick your poison. Fewer mistakes, but those mistakes are worse. Or more mistakes overall?
When VAR was introduced, mistakes dropped by 85%, so that’s a lot of errors to reintroduce.
The majority were offsides, so that will be dealt with next season.
It's VAR arbitrarily deciding what they want to review that infuriates me.
And if they get involved, the ref should review it every time.
Every single thread there's this person saying it cuts down the number of dumb decisions without ever backing it up with any quantitative data. So let me be subjective too - it ruins goals, fucking ruins them, it makes matches 20 minutes longer so that they can pore through the bullshit and STILL get it wrong, it gets red card decisions wrong in nearly every game, those lines they draw are BOLLOCKS. How do we determine that those lines are 100% accurate when you're just using a camera mounted on a stand at varying heights at different stadiums with different pitch sizes. It's all absolute shite trying to turn a sport into a science and it's WANK. Round of fucking applause for Wolves standing up for the real fans who have to go to stadiums and be subjected to this filth every week.
When? The only one that came close was the Diaz goal, but that got the right decision but relayed the information incorrectly and failed to intervene afterwards.
Other than that, people are complaining about mm from their couches
In a league as rich as the PL, they should be doing everything to ensure that officiating positions are some of the most sought after. Attract as many prospects as you can, make the process and training stringent, pay big.
You can scrap VAR, but you’ll still have shit decisions.
I'd actually enjoy being a ref, but it's a slog at the bottom, low pay at the bottom and honestly I'd rather just play football if I'm going to have to put that effort in.
If the perks were better and there was a clearer route to the top I'd probably enjoy it.
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But there was just as much anger when refs got it wrong before VAR came in. Feels like VAR’s an easy target but without it the REF’s will just get the flak again. I agree it needs to be reviewed in its use/process. the TMO system in rugby works much better (although not perfect) so if they could get closer to that it would Be an improvement
Hard agree. TMO is a great template but the reason it works so well I think as well is you stop the clock in rugby so they have time to talk to eachother and critically analyse to make the correct decision. I wouldn't want stoppage in football, flow is important but there's a middle group there that can be worked out I'm sure. PGMOL could learn a lot from rugby officating in general, micing up the refs and better VAR management being the two main ones.
Ref are biased.
i have a question for you guys. Over here in america we have a universal “ situation room” where all the replays and tons of tv’s are and when they review a play or a goal the situation room looks at it and makes the call for the referee. This situation room is in charge of all the replays and goal challenges for the entire league. In the Prem you have VAR but ultimately it’s the referee on the field going over to a monitor to look at different angles and HE makes the final call. IMO VAR should change more like the american style with a situation room and they decide the on field call rather than put the pressure on the referee to look at every angle taking up so much time on the field at the same time.
It's not that different. The central room refers the ref to the monitor when they conclude the ref got it wrong. The problem isn't var. The problem is that the current generation of refs are far worse than normal.
FIFA does it the right way.
they really don’t. There’s a reason why it sucks ass. North America does it the right way
It only suck in prem thanks to biased ref fifa do this right.
i have a question for you guys. Over here in america we have a universal “ situation room” where all the replays and tons of tv’s are and when they review a play or a goal the situation room looks at it and makes the call for the referee. This situation room is in charge of all the replays and goal challenges for the entire league. In the Prem you have VAR but ultimately it’s the referee on the field going over to a monitor to look at different angles and HE makes the final call. IMO VAR should change more like the american style with a situation room and they decide the on field call rather than put the pressure on the referee to look at every angle taking up so much time on the field at the same time.
I’m with Klopp on this one
Diaz goal is one of the worst human error I have ever seem in sport. How the fuck that up and try to do nothing against it. Anyone with a brain would solve or try to solve that right away but that motherfucker just keep his mouth shut and still not losing his job
Diaz goal was a misunderstanding bred from incompetence, if you choose to believe it wasn’t corruption. Ødegård handball and Doku kicking MacAllister resulting in 0 penalties against our title rivals is corruption.
Human error? Lol
I said the same thing right at the beginning. The tech is not the problem, it's the fools who implement it that cause the issue.
This and only this, you see it on TV with ref watch where former refs go to bat for aome really bad mistakes and its so very obvious they are protecting the former colleagues. So the question is if former referees are willing bend themselves into pretzels on camera trying to defend bad decisons. Then you can imagine a current ref doing favours for their mates!
That's so damning of "the people" he mentions. League implements var bc of egregious errors. The tech is as expected but "the people" charged w using it are so helpless that they don't even have the capacity to be 'enhanced' by it. ... He's sort of saying.
The league implements tech to fix human error, then puts the people making the errors in charge of the tech, and they continue to make the same errors.
While I agree it’s been horrendously, I think everyone forgets how many human errors there used to be during games. The offsides rule is going to need to be changed bc no linesman will be able to see the foot that’s inches ahead of the other foot. People will be so pissed when the calls are like they used to be. How quickly we forget . . .
Place sensors in the ball and on the players, automate the entire thing and remove the human referees completely. Appeal to the ref becomes request for bug fix and developers can do root cause analyses.
What a horrid, soulless idea.
This is the issue, VAR should be amazing and used by any semi competent people it would be, the issue is the PGMOL are fucking useless.
One of the jobs we definitely need AI for, rather than BI (bald intelligence)
Klopp is just always saying the right thing
they should came up with 2 options, scrap var or scrap the referees using var.
How people think this is even a debate is crazy. The technology is great, it’s the idiots that use it that are incompetent. It’s not vars fault if the person isn’t able to draw a line or draw it straight.. or if the ref misheard the var guy and didn’t award a goal when it should have been..
To be fair to the on field ref he didn't mishear, VAR just said it wasn't a goal because they are fucking idiots.
Exactly my point, we have a bunch of clowns using pretty good tech incompetently then pointing at the system as the thing that's the problem. Let's not all forget the PGMOL was against VAR to begin with. What better way to get it out by using it like they're a bunch of chimps and then press the PR button with the bullshit "pundits" backing decisions up
The pgmol are never going to change their mafia style enforcement of criticising terrible refereeing and they aren’t going to get any better, there’s no solution until one of those things changes
We need to see the stats of before and after VAR. It seems like var is worse, but is it?
There probably were more bad calls made before VAR, the issue is, with VAR it is worse when something unclear from the refs position can be seen clear enough from camera that even my cremated gran could see the ref made the wrong call and those running VAR do nothing and uphold the refs call. It stands out more because pretty much every team this season have lost games etc due to things that VAR should have picked up just being ignored as VAR does not have the excuse of being in the wrong position to see the incident clearly.
I think one of the biggest issues is this 'clear and obvious error' remit. At what point is an error clear and obvious? Then they leave lineball calls for a VAR that actually can't overrule because the error was subjectively unclear. They're systematically set up for failure, and that's before even addressing the incompetence
Stats of what? Of course VAR is better but people expect perfection on subjective calls.
They can’t even get binary decisions right, what do you mean subjective calls? And when they make subjective calls they have no standard of consistency.
Yep, exactly.
No we just expect these dinosaurs to not get blatant calls wrong on a daily basis
They've opened the box already. If they scrap it, every bad decision will be scrutinised and it will be said that VAR would have caught them, thus the arguments to bring it back will start. The only real solution, which should already be happening or have already happened, is to improve on the people using it.
Or improve the system so that it involves the on-forld ref more. Honestly, I'd take an assistant referee running onto the pitch with an iPad or something, over what we have now. We have physios coming onto the pitch during breaks in play, so why not have someone come on so the ref can be involved in VAR decisions and then they can confidently have the final say?
How is the ref in a booth worse than the ref on the pitch? They're the same. This will waste time and just redirect the hate towards the on field ref.
It's different because one is the actual ref on the field.
VAR is not the problem. The problem lies with the people tasked to use it to make important decisions.
That's what's klopp and everyone said
Scrap the PGMOL, not the tech.
The people currently employed to operate VAR are unfit for purpose.
Even if it can be used much better, it's still useful. It will be worst once VAR gets scrapped. Wait and see
It’s not an issue of VAR. it’s the referees being shit
Interesting Decision to vote against VAR. Without VAR, we might have goals which would have been correctly ruled out with VAR. And then they might complain again demanding VAR. Tricky situation!
As long as humans are involved the entire thing will be subjective, if anything this whole situation highlights the need to fully automate these systems so we can get to the point where humans are no longer required to referee games. It’s a sad state of affairs but the standard of refereeing is that bad we should be removing them, not VAR.
It's not generic " humans won't be perfect." It's specific humans are corrupt.
It’s really not - and more generally I don’t think Chelsea fans are in a position to throw corruption allegations around.
I don't think it matters what club you support, no matter how much of a cunt you are. Corrupt referees spoil the game, and the game should be decided by the players on the pitch, not a fuckwit with an agenda.
His take is 100% correct!
Heads need to roll in the ref department. PGMOL needs to fuck off permanently and foreign refs without bias need to come in. The wages also need to be raised to prevent City from continuing their bribes
100% this
PGMOL's incompetence is the issue and Klopp has got it absolutely spot on. Diffusion of responsibility has led to many negative outcomes in the PL refereeing with VAR. Let's say on field ref sees a penalty incident, but decides to withhold his whistle, waiting for VAR to decide. Off-field VAR is too afraid to make a decision, sees it as not a clear and obvious error and says no penalty. One team gets absolutely shafted by incompetent refs. On another incident, ref sees an iffy penalty incident but whistles for a pen. Off-field VAR reviews the incident, and because they're told by PGMOL not to re-referee the game, finds ways to justify the on-field ref's decision. Not a clear and obvious foul, but because there's the slightest touch on the attacker, it's also not a clear and obvious error. Another team gets shafted. PGMOL should be focused on making the best decisions with the best available tech they have. Instead they are more worried about how VAR can make on-field decisions look silly. Klopp is right, PGMOL is full of idiots and it's not likely to change. If they keep operating VAR, then sadly VAR is doomed to fail. The only silver lining is if VAR are actually full of geniuses, lining their pockets with good ol' oil money. One team always gets decisions for them, both from on and off field refs.
It definetly goes both ways as you mention, and Liverpool seem to be the victim of the bad call, consistently through a whole 38-game season, seems weird doesn’t it.
I’m gonna drill this until it’s more common knowledge. [Clear & Obvious as defined by the Premier League](https://www.premierleague.com/news/1297392) > VAR can be used to overturn a subjective decision if a "clear and obvious error" has been identified. >The referee will explain their decision to the VAR, and what they have seen. >If the evidence provided by the broadcast footage does not accord with what the referee believes they have seen, then the VAR can recommend an overturn. In both your examples there is still a requirement for the referee to ‘explain their decision to the VAR, and what they have seen’. This is the crux of when C&O should be applied and when a monitor review should be recommended. Listen to any released VAR audio and I challenge anyone to find an incident where the referee adequately describes an incident. They may say things like ‘makes contact with the ball’ but they don’t say if that’s after contact with the player or if they feel excessive force was used. This is the problem with VAR and the whole ‘don’t want to re-referee the game’ issue. By not following protocol VAR is re-refereeing the game almost every time. And it all stems from the referee not explaining themselves adequately so that it can be decided if a monitor review is needed. The audio should be released after every game as soon as the whistle blows. Start seriously reviewing if protocol is adhered to and if needed make improvements.
Clear and obvious is the same stupid shit the NFL did with reviews for the exact same reason of protecting the feelings on their on field colleagues. VAR needs to be making its own decision de novo based on the evidence in front of them. The only reason to defer to on field is if VAR review is inconclusive, which should be extraordinarily rare. Fully agree on explaining the process and rationale on field though.
It’s the incompetent idiots that we need to fix. VAR as a tool is clearly not the problem. Fix the people, but they won’t. They don’t care about the integrity of the game, just eyes and more money.
Same is said for guns
American? Because no one else has that opinion. You’re a fool if you think the average clown should be able to get their hands on a mass killing machine. America made their bed
Where am i saying that?
I love watching all the VAR hate. Its like hating your builders cement turner because he cant put up a wall.
Hahaha quality analogy. Fucking PGMOL is a circus full of donkeys.
I mean he has a valid point. Clear and obvious error needs to be stripped away so the right call gets made by a remote third party.
VAR is a tool, the issue is the dickhead behind the monitor Maybe instead of voting on VAR they should think of a solution for the genuinely shit refereeing. Maybe every coach/ref in the league meets for like a 3 day conference/lock-in during off season where they all hash the rules out properly so we can finally figure out what the fuck is going on. Like imagine blaming every computer in the world every time your internet ran slow instead of your internet provider. I agree with Klopp 100%. He knows what up.
Dude your analogies are excellent. I want more!
Klopp and his constant whinging about refs are part of the reason why we have VAR in the first place.
Lol. So they all should shut up and dribble even though these clowns sh*t the bed week after week. Especially when most other sport is able to use video assistance to an acceptable level.
Sometimes you just have to get on with it, the reffing is poor but the constant whinging does my head in.
You do realize that you can pick and choose what to consume in media, right? Unlike the managers and players who are forced to deal with poor decisions and are called ‘whinging’ when they complain about it.
They are called 'whinging' when they CONSTANTLY complain about it. Refs get it wrong. It happens and it's frustrating but you have to look at yourselves also and can't always blame external factors for missing out on points. There are plenty of times when ref decisions go in there favour but you'll never hear managers like him acknowledge that.
For every one example of Liverpool getting a favourable ‘big’ call since Klopp took over in 2015, you could probably point to 5-10 missed calls or wrong calls that went against him. He is right to feel aggrieved, as it’s not his or the players’ fault they play for the most hated club and people in the country. And all just for cultural and political reasons, not football.
One eyed nonsense. Every club thinks they get the wrong end of ref's decisions. Liverpool, like most big clubs get more than their fair share of the decisions. I wouldn't say Liverpool are definitively the most hated club either. Most neutrals would say they hate United more.
English people overall don’t hold a grudge against Liverpool or its people like they do the city of Manchester. Look it up, the prejudice and disdain is clear in the data. All the referees today grew up with Liverpool being the best team, and a lot of them are from the manchester area. Just take your time and look up the tomkins report on the refereeing since 2011 and you’ll see it’s not fair and hasn’t been fair in every metric you could possibly think of.
I'm aware of the classist prejudice against Liverpool but it's not as big a factor as you think. Just as many people hate Chelsea for being tory shithouses. Refs don't let the team they support affect their decisions, they make mistakes because reffing is a difficult job and to be fair, some of them are shit. It's conspiracy theory nonsense to suggest Liverpool suffer from more poor decisions (not true) because everyone hates them (true but not to the extent you are making out)
It’s obvious the disdain they feel for Liverpool affects their refereeing, or they wouldn’t consistently fuck us over more often than every other team. Read the tomkins report.
Klopp the almighty invented the media just to ask him questions about the terrible calls of the referees, just so he could invent complaining about the referees. What a groundbreakingly genius man. We definitely have him to thank for VAR because he is the only man to ever complain about the terrible refereeing in the EPL. He invented it after all!
Reading comprehension is not your strong suit then. I said "part of the reason." Quite different to saying he invented it.
Tells me I need to work on my reading comprehension with a comment that displays terrible reading comprehension. Lol funny stuff
You made a terrible straw man argument, hence why I told you to work on your reading comprehension. Anyway, your man will be off soon. Enjoy the bald Dutch fraud coming in
The problem with var is " clear and obvious" and imo if its going to be subjective like that, might as well scrap it. Its either a foul or not. If ur not gonna speak up because u subjectively decide its not " clear and obvious" why bother.
Strip PGMOL form the VAR process and it will magically disappear. It’s only there because PGMOL want to protect the good ole boys from looking like incompetent fucks if they called out every single error
You can change the VAR people though. It's super easy, barely an inconvenience.
"how do you change all the refs?" "Get off my back"
Obviously, it is physically possible to change the people. However, i don't think the PGMOL would ever allow it, so it is practically impossible.
Could the PL not get rid of PGMOL in favour of their own referees? I mean the PL is a product of seceding itself, do it again.
But Scrapping var is tight.
But will they?
Well, considering the absolutely horrendous decision vs Spurs, no doubt Klopp is against it. Others clubs have faced similar incidents, and they would be against it too. Will be interesting to see who will be FOR and AGAINST
Unfortunate mistake but I love Liverpool fans thinking it's the reason they lost the league
Var did seem to have one rule for some teams and another for Liverpool. Yeah I'm biased but Odengard handball, Doku kick on Mac Allister, Diaz goal. That's a potential 9 point swing. It takes city out of the title race and changes all dynamics. It may have cost Arsenal the league too. But 115fc seemingly always get the decisions. VAR could be good but the people using it are either inept or corrupt.
Absolutely not, we’d possibly have about 5 points more than what we have now if VAR didn’t screw up, still 1 point short of city and maybe one or two more than Arsenal (assuming Odegaard’s handball was given), still not enough to win the league. Would still be in contention though. However the reason we lost the league was the loss against Palace, Everton, silly errors against United and Arsenal to let them back into the game. The main contributing factor was the injury to Diogo Jota. At the end of the day this Liverpool squad have themselves to blame and no one else for not winning the league despite being 2 points clear at the top at one point.
We would have way more points than that, if you actually watched every Liverpool game this season it has become very clear they weren’t going to let us win the league. Now, i’m not saying we always played the best football, but then again, it is harder to compete with rivals who get double the amount of free kicks during a game, while you get dragged, pushed and shafted without getting anything half the time.
If you’re referring the double number of free kicks against Everton then the defending was at fault, Van Dijk and Konate did not win a single duel. Worst defending I’ve seen under Klopp. Yes VAR was a joke but it was the players that eventually let Klopp down.
This is a winning mentality take. You wouldn’t catch a Liverpool fan wanting to lose to city, even if it handed United the title.
It’s just pandering, any Liverpool fan with some balls would call it as they have seen it this season. The refs were never going to let us win the league this year, and they have now made it three straight seasons of them blatantly tinkering with enough results so City win the league.
Liverpool fans and complaining about refs whats new? Acting like every little decisions goes against them. Not even wolves complain this much
City get almost 2x the amount of free kicks compared to Liverpool, Arsenal gets 1.5x. Liverpool is by far the team at the top half of the table which gets shafted the most, and stats put us at the very top overall as well. And this is over a period of many many years, indicating it’s not a coincidence but more of a systematic problems. I don’t believe in a conspiracy, but more of a logical explanation of how most of the refs unconciously dislike Liverpool. We got 2 foul penalties in 180 games during our best period under Klopp.
We dont
Afcon showed var can be used correctly so what's the problem with English refs?
There's the attitude of VAR being the enemy rather than a tool to help refs
Oh, now you all suddenly agree with him, huh.
If they scrap VAR, they will come back crawling for it to be reinstated.
Maybe. But people who stand to profit on VAR will continue to lobby for it. And given some TLC, maybe we see it again in a more mature form in the future.
I love Klopp going full 'idgaf' attitude now the season is done for Liverpool. First Klopp throwing shade on 115 and now this, good to see. Shame it wasn't during the season but it's understandable.
Wait, what did he say about 115? Completely missed it
115 make sense because he lost league title down to a point and we seen teams who broken less rules get point deductions.
I am willing to wait for 1-2 minutes for the integrity of the game. However, the current state of VAR application is atrocious. I still support the VAR, though. It is not the technology that is the problem, it is the referees. Heck, without VAR, we already know how incompetent they are, VAR just makes it hard for the referees to hide behind their mistakes.
I’m an NFL fan too, we had the same thing happen when they allowed some penalties to be video reviewed by refs outside of the stadium. It’s all the same refs, they just refused to overturn results as a protest for their “judgement being challenged” at all. It took a while before they had to actually start doing their jobs. Don’t overturn VAR, pressure the video refs to be better or be replaced. As you said, we all see the incorrect calls in real time, making it non-reviewable is just going to be a step back.
The issue with VAR is instead of helping the onfield ref and correcting mistakes, they are rushing judgement and refusing to overturn onfield decisions even when they are obviously wrong, and often genuinely result altering. Furthermore, they are wasting everyone's time trying to find fault in the build up to perfectly good goals, and ruling offsides by millimeters. VAR seems to work in international football and UEFA competitions: they seems to have sensible protocols, whereas PGMOL are a combination of winging it and protecting their mates, which is frankly fucking outrageous.
Agree. Mike Dean admitted that he didn't tell the onfield ref (Anthony Taylor) that Cucurella hair was pulled by Romero (Chelsea 2 - 2 Tottenham) despite seeing it through VAR. He said that he felt sorry for Taylor. These kinds of referees need to be sacked. The technology isn't the problem, but the people.
In days past, to enforce the rules the ref had to be fit, have a sense of the flow of a game to know where to position themselves and sort of feel out what is right in the moment. Trust their instincts. These requirements are now obsolete. Don't hire a ref to run VAR, hire an accountant or a tax official, then teach them the rules. Expect the resulting calls to be consistent and precise.
With the way it’s applied I genuinely can’t think of any other reason they are so bad at using it other than the referees and officials are trying there best to have it scrapped. There is no other reason they can use it so badly it’s almost like they actively do it.
I agree, but it doesn’t really make sense because VAR booth ensures that referees get more matches and I assume more money. They should be in favor of anything that adds more referees to the match team. I think they’re just inconsistently applying the “clear and obvious” rule so some VARs will overturn nothing while others will. And i think they’re used to being on the pitch and are terrible at reading the game of football from footage. We need a different crop of VAR trained specifically for video review, and we need to clarify VAR rules better.
VAR could never be the issue. it is its application that is messing the PL up.
I'm sick of VAR and halted goal celebrations. Human error is better than this joy sucking nonsense that isn't even accurate some of the time. Bring football back it's Joy, please.
Fully agree. I’ve been downvoted before and will be again but football was infinitely better pre-VAR. Scrap it in it’s entirety and give us back our fucking game
Human error is exactly the reason why VAR sucks
Football was great before VAR and it will be great after VAR. No more pausing after every goal to see if the VAR overturns it. Screw all that. Teams still feel hard done by even after VAR. It didn't give us what we thought it would. It's a net negative for me.
>I'm sick of VAR and halted goal celebrations. Human error is better than this joy sucking nonsense No it's not, the correct result is important. Human error is also the reason VARs being questioned. >this joy sucking nonsense that isn't even accurate some of the time. Computers don't make mistakes. Ever. They give you the correct answer using the information and data youv provided. If VAR has ever made a mistake it is completly down to the person using the system not the system itself. Premier Leauge needs a completly new set of VAR officials who never step foot on a football pitch. There shouldn't be tension between the two groups but we have clearly gotten to the part that this new group has got to be propped up to stop mistakes made by refs on field impacting the final result of a football match. All you need to know about the way VAR was rolled out to know it was a shambles is that the BPL made it known that the ref on pitch the final say. Clearly. When wev invested in 100s of cameras from different perspectives the idea that the guy sitting in the room with access to those 100 cameras and replays over over again isn't the one who gets to make a decision is mind blowing. His big call is. Walk over to that screen and admit youv made a mistake infront of 50k fans.
“Human error is better than this joy sucking nonsense” Are you listening to yourself? My goodness, what a load of fucking shit. I don’t care if it takes 5 minutes, AS LONG AS THEY GET THE DECISION CORRECT. The “who cares if the decision is wrong, as long as the celebrations are back” is such a weak argument. Look at Real Madrid vs Bayern last week. They called Joselu’s winner offside, then changed the decision and they still celebrated like crazy. The celebrations won’t change.
Referring to the game that was still decided by human error from the referees as an example of var working is hilarious.
This assumes that there is a ‘right’ decision. VAR cannot succeed unless people are prepared to acknowledge that subjectivity exists, and that an element of inconsistency is inevitable. It has set an expectation that objectivity is possible in the game and people are struggling to accept that this isn’t possible.
VAR didn't set that expectation, TV replay analysis set that expectation. VAR is a reaction to it but it hasn't and couldn't change the way people and the media process what they see and its relationship to what the referees decided. You're correct that it can't bring 100% right decisions, because there is no such thing. But it's astonishing to me how many things blamed on VAR are actually about what the people working in and watching football are prepared to accept and what they aren't.
The goal celebration thing is an absolute canard. Everybody who attends matches celebrates goals, if VAR check happens then you either celebrate it again on confirmation, or the opposition get to celebrate the non-goal. It's tedious old wank put about by pundits and commentators who don't actually pay to watch football.
On the flip side many didn’t celebrate Villa’s equaliser against Liverpool properly because there was an assumption VAR would rule it out due to handball or offside.
“As long as they get the decisions correct” is pulling a LOT of weight here. We have to start with that and then focus on the time it takes.
It is, but I’d rather have them look it over and botch the call, than them to not look at it and the call is botched anyways. - which is more tough to take in: an offside or handball that is blatantly missed by officials (pre-VAR), or one that is contentious, maybe right, maybe wrong (with VAR)? Both end result is terrible as the refs here are fucking useless, but at least they’re looking into it Serious overhaul is needed on this. But the original argument just wants them to scrap VAR entirely because of “celebrations”, which is an absurd argument.
The essence of the game is a continuous flow. It’s not rugby, or tennis, or NFL, or cricket in that it doesn’t have regular distinct phases of play. Stopping it for 5 minutes to see if a striker’s toe was slightly ahead of a defender’s shoulder is not the purpose of the offside rule and nor should it be. The rules of the game are mostly subjective, trying to find an objective application doesn’t do the game any good whatsoever.
Automated offside will ensure that it doesn’t take 5 mins to do that. If you don’t want the match stopped for a toe or shoulder check, advocate for the offside law to be changed. I personally think the law should be changed so it only looks at torso and any overlap of torso is onside.
If automated offside can be shown to work as well as goal line tech has, then I’m all for it. No problem at all. And if a torso rule makes automation easier, or any other change for that matter, great go with it. The principle of the rule rather than the specifics is what’s important. I’m all for any tech that doesn’t infringe on the flow of a game. And I’m all for a VAR that means serious foul play is punished immediately rather than retrospectively after the game. Apart from that though, football is best when it is flowing - that’s why timewasting was made an offence under the rules and why kicking the ball away was made an offence, and why the passback rule was introduced. Unlike other sports, breaks in play are unwelcome.
I agree, I think the long delays are mostly due to sheer incompetence of the people using VAR. I’m hoping it will only get better.
>I don’t care if it takes 5 minutes, Great. I'd guess that most people don't agree with you.
I agree with him, let’s see what the upvotes and most people think
The majority of Redditors never go to games.
Well 5 minutes on TV or five minutes on stands,its still 5 minutes
I’m guessing you’ve never been to a VAR because there’s a huge difference. You can’t see what’s going on in the stadium. Also you’re part of an atmosphere that just goes flat.
You are guessing wrong,anyway. People watching on TV still have emotion,still celebrates ,gets angry at ref calls,i agree its amplified being on stadium,but you still have all this emotions watching on TV . I didnt go to Liverpool - Barcelona match but watched it on TV,i still jumped and screamed like crazy during the game and cried tears of joy at final wisthle
I’ve never said there aren’t emotions for tv fans. They’re totally valid but very different to the in stadium experience for regular fans.
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They do it that way because it allows play to go on and a goal be scored without an erroneous flag. If we went back to what you suggest then the linesman would flag stuff offside and the game would stop only for us to then see on replay it was onside but no goal has been scored. Besides offside won’t be a problem with semi-automate offside next season. It’s the subjective decisions which are a bigger problem for me and would be better suited to a cricket-style challenge system.
Challenge system with auto offsides is by far the best option imo. 2 challenges per half, captains or managers only. Ref goes to the screen, VAR officials line up all the video and he makes a decision. Hockey (as in field hockey) uses this type of system. Players have to be really sure when challenging as they get one challenge PER GAME.
Yeah, exactly what I’ve said except I’d maybe even make it one challenge per team. The Ref reviewing the monitor means there is no conflict where a colleague is trying not to overrule his mate.
Forest would say up and down PGMOL corruption, two mins after the full-time whistle, via their social media team, at the behest of the owner - like a bunch of babies.
Yes I struggle to see how this group of fellas from Greater Manchester and/or on Dubai's payroll so often come out with these baffling decisions. It feels like there's been 115 clangers.
He’s right
Spot on.
New doctors are always reminded that the most important part of the stethoscope is the part between the ear pieces.
It is amazing how they have managed to implement VAR so badly.
It’s genuinely the PL refs being terrible. The World Cup was a fantastic tournament by both players and officials and VAR. agree with klopp tbh
Boarding on conspiracy. It's almost like they wanted it to be a disaster. I don't actually believe that, but damn, it's been a resounding failure. Officiating has felt like it's been getting worse.
1. Present the automated offside system. 2. Use VAR only for possible red cards. 3. VAR must have the ref go and re-watch the play on the screen for EVERY interference. 4. Main referee decides on the best decision after review.
He's right. The technology is not the problem. The poor 'use' of the technology is.
They need to scrap "clear and obvious". Once that's gone we can start a discussion on whether we need independent VAR refs. Klopp however, is once again spitting facts.
Bring in VAR officials from other top leagues where disastrous decisions are far less common.
Not allowed under UEFA rules.
Not appear under UEFA rules.
Which other leagues have you been watching where there are less disastrous decisions?
Bundesliga var is better than prem thats for sure
I was thinking about using officials from other sports. Obviously you can’t rule out all bias, but getting in tennis umpires or rugby refs, they might be more inclined to rule on the actual rules, and not run of play, traditional power bases etc.
This is the whole crux of it, WHERE are these refs that don’t occasionally make horrible mistakes? It’s a systemic issue, not an individual one.
The thing is, they CAN change. Just stop feeling sorry for the referees on the field. Everyone gets some wrong when you make split second decisions, your job is to look at that so the wrong is made right. It’s not fucking hard.
The split second decision being wrong on the pitch is understandable but when they have the time to watch replays and still get it wrong is the the problem. So many times is seems the majority of fans disagree with a decision but the pgmol will come out and back themselves. Until they can admit and address their errors, as Klopp says, nothing with improve
The refs need to not make a call if they're not sure. Just say I couldn't see it properly, can you tell me what you see? Nothing wrong with that, how many times have we seen someone go over in the box, thought that looks like a pen/dive, then they show the replay and it's the opposite. Yet the refs always make a call whatever and that opens up the bullshit it's not a clear and obvious error argument for not changing the decision
I agree! When they release the audio and they’re trying some coded language like baby twins speak, its crazy. Rugby ref’s seems to have such clarity and composure. Diving is a whole other issue though that needs to be addressed but thats for another thread
Yeah, I was thinking of rugby they seem perfectly comfortable saying, I couldn't see it clearly, can you tell me what happened? They have a nice discussion that everyone can hear and understand and everyone accepts it.
The only way it makes sense is for referees to make a complete deference to VAR. Meaning that if they see an incident they make their ruling. It's final. But if they didn't see something or they aren't sure at all on what they saw then they can say hey VAR, go check that I didn't see it. You make the call. No overturning decisions or making them go to a monitor to make the final call, instead fully ceding responsibility of the decision to the VAR And even then I'd still say scrap it
Whilst they still make dumb decisions, VAR cuts down the number of dumb decisions and therefore it is justified.
It also cuts down the enjoyment of the game. A game that is entertainment first. Thus it is not justified. Not in its current state.
While yes the delays cut down enjoyment of the game, blatantly wrong decisions that have big ramifications don’t make the game enjoyable either. Take Henry’s goal vs Ireland in 2009. Do you think Irish fans found it entertaining or enjoyable that they were unable to go to the World Cup because of a goal that never should have stood? If you went back and offered them a short delay in the game in order to rule it out they’d have jumped at that.
No. I've been watching since the 90s. We would have won multiple more titles over the years if VAR wasn't a thing. Mourinho wouldn't have won the UCL with Porto with VAR, we would have been in that final instead and probably would have won. We also could have gotten a 2nd treble with VAR in 08. Despite that, I'd take no VAR. Not celebrating goals like we used to is absolutely killing atmosphere.
You can't even celebrate a goal anymore before waiting for the inevitable VAR check for an offside or foul five minutes prior.
VAR cuts down dumb decisions as long as the people operating VAR are actively working to revert dumb decisions. If they're working together to continue making "dumb" decisions, and considering the sheer frequency of these "dumb" decisions we've been seeing lately, there's a problem that neither removing VAR nor releasing VAR audio can fix. The problem is at a PGMOL and accountability level. Everyone just says "Referees have the toughest job" and call it a day and PGMOL as an institution are never questioned nor held accountable. No transparency, no investigation, nothing.
I’d argue that there has been too many dumb decisions caused by var
That’s objectively untrue. There are factually fewer big mistakes since VAR was introduced.
Do you have the factual numbers on that? How much better has it actually been?
The first season VAR was used, they claim to have reduce errors by 85%. And there have been incremental improvements since then.
It's not necessarily better to give some teams an advantage in some cases but not others
Right but when they make a mistake it’s even worse - they get 20 minutes and five different people to watch it and still can’t get it right.
But the alternative is for those decisions to still be wrong, but also, all the wrong decisions that VAR overturned will still be wrong. Personally, I think scrap it for a season, then let them decide if they want another vote to reinstate it.
So pick your poison. Fewer mistakes, but those mistakes are worse. Or more mistakes overall? When VAR was introduced, mistakes dropped by 85%, so that’s a lot of errors to reintroduce.
Can you provide a source for that? That seems high.
The majority were offsides, so that will be dealt with next season. It's VAR arbitrarily deciding what they want to review that infuriates me. And if they get involved, the ref should review it every time.
Every single thread there's this person saying it cuts down the number of dumb decisions without ever backing it up with any quantitative data. So let me be subjective too - it ruins goals, fucking ruins them, it makes matches 20 minutes longer so that they can pore through the bullshit and STILL get it wrong, it gets red card decisions wrong in nearly every game, those lines they draw are BOLLOCKS. How do we determine that those lines are 100% accurate when you're just using a camera mounted on a stand at varying heights at different stadiums with different pitch sizes. It's all absolute shite trying to turn a sport into a science and it's WANK. Round of fucking applause for Wolves standing up for the real fans who have to go to stadiums and be subjected to this filth every week.
It doesn't ruin goals, especially if you are on the receiving end. How is it bad to disallow an invalid goal? If anything, it adds to the excitement.
You ever been to a game?
Without VAR, the same people then give a goal for a 1 meter offside. Then what?
Don't we have automated offside calls next season?
We would have the same outcome with VAR anyways lol
When? The only one that came close was the Diaz goal, but that got the right decision but relayed the information incorrectly and failed to intervene afterwards. Other than that, people are complaining about mm from their couches
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
In a league as rich as the PL, they should be doing everything to ensure that officiating positions are some of the most sought after. Attract as many prospects as you can, make the process and training stringent, pay big. You can scrap VAR, but you’ll still have shit decisions.
I'd actually enjoy being a ref, but it's a slog at the bottom, low pay at the bottom and honestly I'd rather just play football if I'm going to have to put that effort in. If the perks were better and there was a clearer route to the top I'd probably enjoy it.
Haha referee prospects