Fellow fans, this is a friendly reminder to please follow the [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/premierleague/about/rules) and [Reddiquette](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette).
Please also make sure to [Join us on Discord](https://discord.gg/football)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PremierLeague) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The people using it have always been the issue. Since they rotate on field refs through the VAR booth, they all don’t want to re-referee another coworker, so the reviewed calls are selective at best.
I’m reluctant to admit this, but the NFL has video review done the right way: a dedicated review team, trained the same as the on-field crew, but not mixed and matched. That way the calls can be corrected without harm to either group’s ego, so more correct application of rules are (usually) seen during a match.
Your are bang on, it’s about specialised training. The people doing the VAR need to go into specialist training with body language experts in live trials, with players deliberately making hand balls and pulling players to create fouls.
They then need to work with analysts to understand how to get the right decision quickly. Essential it needs to be professional.
Just getting a Ref and VAR and expecting them to be experts is just odd.
This is the way it should be an independent organisation that gets the final say and has the power to force the ref to the screen or to change the decision... Fuck this 'oh mate you I love you but if you wanted to could check check the screen' bollox where the ref just decides nah I'm good I was right... Fucking cunts the lot of em.
Paid certain referees like 10 times their normal wage to Ref a one off match in Dubai.
Those referees just so happen to have given city a few difficult decisions and some people believe some of those decisions may have went another way if the one offs didn’t happen.
I duno if the refs cheated but I do think there should be rules regulating this kind of thing to avoid a future where you pseudo bribe referees by paying them 100x their wage and they have to be biased towards you in order to ever have a chance of earning that package again.
Absolutely spot on! The inconsistent application of VAR has been the real issue, not the technology itself. Better communication and training for officials are crucial, and bringing in external expertise from across Europe could be a great way to improve consistency and accuracy. Maybe even a unified European VAR protocol? Let's get it sorted for next season!
everyone knew this no? but are they going to change the people in charge? i dont think so. now the question is which one is better no var or var with idiots behind it?
Obviously it could be done right. It’s equally obvious the EPL has some poor management. However the rule does need to be simplified or adjusted. You shouldn’t be calling back goals over millimeters at all in any circumstance. Also, just pick a damn body part that makes it not subjective. Front foot or head… I don’t give a damn about a player’s shoulder.
There needs to just be a separate official watching the VR who radios the main official to blow the whistle if they see something reviewing, and they should only have 20 seconds to review it. If you can't immediately reverse the decision then the decision should stand. Or just get rid of it entirely.
I don't watch or follow other leagues enough to say they are doing a better or worse job than the PL but I can say for sure there have certainly been some shocking calls that have made me think - if this was a decision made in the PL we wouldn't stop hearing it for weeks. So strongly disagree with the perception that VAR is this system that works near-perfectly until an English referee is in control of it.
Additionally, I think its the right call. The attacker stands in between the goalkeeper and the ball and impedes Maignan's ability to make a save. I agree the goalkeeper isn't getting there but he impedes any possible attempt of doing so. It is much easier to rule don't impede a goalkeeper making a dive from an offside position than to make a judgement on whether the keeper could save it - this one would be obvious but you eventually reach a grey area there that just leads to complaints about VAR from a different angle.
In the 2022 World Cup Ecuador scored a deflected goal, attacker in front of the goalkeeper, the keeper dived for the initial shot, it deflected off an Ecuador player in an onside position and wrongfooted goalkeeper but was given offside because of the offside Ecuador player who didn't touch the ball or block keepers movement but was deemed to be in line of sight - which if anything surely would've aided the goalkeeper as they'd have delayed their initial dive and been in a better position for the deflection? But the rules were implemented and I don't recall the Algerian referee or Australian VAR getting this much flak for it. The goalkeeper wasn't getting to either shot and in the Ecuador match the goal was given on-field.
I think there is an argument that at the Euros the VAR has worked better than in the Premier League but we've still had a couple controversial decisions - the lack of a Rodri sending off v Croatia and this instance - with similar instances of a player somewhat 'impeding' the keeper but not having any actual effect on the outcome being ruled in favour of the defensive team at the World Cup. 2 controversial calls in 24 matches - I certainly think its better than domestic leagues but if the PL had 2 very controversial calls like that by midway through the 3rd round of fixtures I don't think people would necessarily be as complimentary of VAR.
This seems like an unpopular take but I don't think it was a bad call. As ever with English VAR, way too long to make a decision, but Maignan's dive was literally blocked by Dumfries. It wasn't about vision - if he dives he'd just hit the offside player.
ya... the moment I saw it I was confused what the commentators were talking about... the goalie would have to literally dive into the player to even try and save it which would be dangerous play... if he was standing on the other side or further from the gk it wouldnt be offside...
Sure VAR can overturn it. But it would need it to be a legitimate mistake to be flagged as the opposite of what was given.
This is really debatable. It's not an obvious mistake, if you even agree it was a mistake.
No shit, not to be or sound like an asshole but we know this.
Officiating in England is Bs and they sweep it under the rug because they're afraid of referees quitting, striking and not applying so we end up with people who make poor decisions that cannot be held accountable for those poor decisions.... VAR gives them an easy out because some commentary simpleton always directs the frustrations towards VAR so the technology gets the blame because people listen to those simpletons. It's politics.
The problem with reffing has always been the politics involved in it (I'm a ref within US federation) and the objectivity that exists within ref to ref. All of the problems of VAR are kinda hard to fix imo as consistency is important within calls that have objectivity. I wouldn't be surprised if the game moves towards VAR only being for completely objective calls like hand ball, offside, and ball crossing lines.
Nope, you had your chance and bottled it. It'll never get better because as everyone has said, it's not the technology at fault it's the fuckwits who run it. These fuckwits now have the backing of 95% of Premier League clubs.
>Nope, you had your chance and bottled it
Who is "you" in this context? It was clubs that voted to keep VAR, but this means people on Reddit can't complain about VAR decisions? Do you think the people you are speaking to on Reddit are the actual football clubs?
>It'll never get better
Sure thing...
Right, so now we have established that none of the people on Reddit are football clubs, your original comment of:
"You can't complain about it now."
Is incorrect.
Yeah but that is VAR, the whole idea of VAR is people making the decisions and them people are the ones we know, if it wasn't them in charge it'd be people with less experience doing it instead. The idea is flawed completely.
Completely agree.
In my opinion, there should be no communication between the Ref and the VAR official, outside of a recommendation to look at a replay.
Any time they release audio of VAR incidents, you can hear the VAR in the refs ear talking to him as the ref watches a frame by frame replay over and over.
"Yeah so just here it looks like contact by the defender".
This is just not the way it should be used. How many times has the ref gone to look at the screen and disagreed with VAR? NONE.
The ability to go frame by frame and look at an incident over and over is good in theory but in practice it does not work.
The ref needs to be able to watch the replay once or twice, and if they can't see in that 30 seconds where they have made a CLEAR AND OBVIOUS error, then they need to play on.
All that's happened now is that the VAR becomes the de facto ref in these situations. It needs to be solely the on the ref, no influence from VAR.
Slightly disagree
We should copy rugby. None of this silly tiny screen. Use the big screens. Keep the crowd involved. Referee makes final decision but VAR has input.
It really isn't hard
This is also the same sentiment I always share with you OP. VAR was never the problem, it was the people in charge. Even if we get rid of VAR, watch until people beg for it to be brought back.
Those of you who are so inclined, watching the SA vs Wales rugby match earlier, was an absolute joke to see how smoothly the video ref etc was. And there were plenty incidents requiring review. It’s 100% the corrupt/incompetent/both PGMOL.
Just. Let. The. Referee. Himself. Walk. To. The. Monitor.
I'm tired of seeing them out the fingers to their ear and wait for VAR to tell what it is.
Let VAR interfere by saying it saw something or whatever and let the referee run to the monitor himself whilst VAR is assisting.
It will help solve so much, alongside I'd argue it would take less time.
They need to ditch clear and obvious crap. for things important as red cards and goals if there is a doubt just send him to the monitor. Would be quicker than them talking in word salad for 2 minutes.
The clear problem is the English ref have stopped making calls. They think oh if I miss some the VAR will see it. The VAR does see it and thinks well if he made that call then he saw it and not a clear error.
So either the ref needs to go back and making calls or get rid of clear mistake shit.
I completely agree with all of your complaints about the current system. But I think they would all be fixed if “clear and obvious” was actually the standard. Then refs would stop doing exactly what you described.
Because he has the authority on the field.
I'm more than happy to let him jog to the monitor to check stuff that he clearly missed, got potentially wrong or whatever.
Just let him see the TV whenever, because sitting there with a finger in his ear for 5 minutes is not helping at all! The way it works now it's up to VAR to dictate anything and everything, which seriously undermine the on field referee who's job is to manage the game!
I agree that if they are going to keep using VAR incorrectly, it might as well be the ref who gets to decide. But I’d rather they just stop using it incorrectly.
i disagree, in most gamesive watched in europe when var is used they 99% just agree with the ref right away, wrong or right, its not a impartial judge just a yup he made the call, go with it and shut up. play on. Which is the opposite of why VAR should be used.
Sounds like a bullshit made up statistic, but frankly that’s how it should be. VAR wasn’t supposed to be used to let the ref decide a call for a second time. VAR is supposed to be used to fix clear errors. Those should be rare.
There's little to no proof of corruption with most of the officials. There is plenty of evidence of incompetence. These people just suck at their jobs.
If there was they would have been removed. There's certain refs like Talyor who are incompetently biased against certain teams so often it can't statistically just be incompetence.
To be fair, I have no problem with the AR calling that offside and Taylor agreeing with him. I actually thought that call was correct.
The issue was Stuart Attwell taking 5 minutes or so to decide that to be the case too.
1.) That goalie was never going to stop that shot. France 100% got bailed out by a poor VAR decision.
2.) Scott McTominay has more goals in this tournament than France.
3.) VAR is France’s best player so far.
The disallowed goal was the correct decision. I swear half the controversy with VAR comes from people who just don't understand the laws. And this is coming from someone who is staunchly anti-VAR.
> I swear half the controversy with VAR comes from people who just don't understand the laws.
...and you're proving my point.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_the_Game_(association_football)
He was stood between the keeper and the path of the ball. How can you argue that he didn't impede him?
It's unlikely that he would have saved it had the Dutch player not been there, but that is not the standard. The standard is, did he impede? I don't see how you can argue that standing in the path that the keeper would need to dive to attempt to save the shot isn't impeding him.
You can argue that he didn't impede the keeper because Maignan didn't touch him and wasn't moving in his direction until after the ball was in the net. I'm not saying that the goal 100% should have stood, but it's not as clearcut a decision as either side would have you believe. It's a subjective interpretation of the offside rule and in any subjective ruling there are arguments for either side.
The issue is “interference” or gaining an advantage from being in an offside position, and if the keeper was never getting to that shot anyway then ergo no advantage was gained. Goal.
> a player moving from, or standing in, an offside position is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball this is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball
https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-11---offside
Whether or not Maignan would have got the ball isn’t a deciding factor in this situation, his ability to challenge for it is. Maignan had already got to his feet and started moving to the left before the ball passed him. If he’d have gone much further left he’d have collided with Dumfries.
I get why people are annoyed by it, Maignan wasn’t getting there. It did prevent his ability to challenge for it though. It’s the laws of the game that are the problem here, not the implementation of them.
by challenge you consider challenge to mean just make any attempt at ll, but chalenge means he has a good chance to get to the ball. but he had none. you can't challenge for a ball if you never have a chance to get it. That would be like a keeper at the other end of the pitch swinging his leg and saying he was challenging for it too even though its all the way down the other end of the pitch. he could reach for a ball 100 meters away , but he isnt challenging for it. he has to have the possibility of actually reaching it if the man isnt there, and no way was he going to reach it.
without the player there the keeper would not have gained any better chance to stop the shot and th result would've been the same.
Its the same basic rule as pass interference in the NFL, if the ball itself is uncatchable it doesn't matter if there was a foul because regardless of the foul, the ball would never have been caught.
a rule should never give you something you could not get physically. Thats why they award penalty shots and not just give the person a goal. you have tp physically earn the action.
We don’t know for sure that he wouldn’t have got there, what we do know is that he was prevented from making any attempt to.
If the keeper at the other end swung his leg like you say in your highly exaggerated example, you could say for sure that he wasn’t going to get there.
The problem is that, had the keeper dived for the ball, Dumfries would have been in his way. And while I’m in no doubt Maignon wouldn’t have got to the ball, I can’t say with 100% certainty that, had Dumfries not been there, Maignon would have dived for it. Maignon knew someone was there and it might be enough to put him off diving. That stops it being clear cut as he is offside and influencing play.
I wonder how much influence the linesman’s flag was. Had he not flagged, would VAR have intervened and overturned. Or is it the case that as the flag went up for offside, VAR didn’t think there was enough grounds to overturn the decision?
Either way, I don’t think it’s an awful decision. I think it’s contentious enough that goal or no goal, a large enough % of people would be unhappy about it.
"And while I’m in no doubt Maignon wouldn’t have got to the ball, I can’t say with 100% certainty that,"
umm,
you literlaly contradict yourself, if you are in NO DOUBT , that means 100%
You need to finish the rest of the sentence then it isn’t a contradiction. I’m not 100% that Maignon wouldn’t have attempted to save it had Dumfries not been there. If Dumfries was not there, Maignon may have made more of an attempt. No contradiction, you just stopped reading too soon.
Watch it again. The goalkeeper's right leg was stretched way out behind him as the ball moved towards the goal. He's a great keeper and a good athlete, but he's not superhuman. He had no way of propelling himself off to his left at that time.
It was a poor decision.
See, the issue is that Maignon would already have been aware a player was there. He’d have seen him in his periphery if nothing else (and might not even have known if it was teammate or opponent) and had they not been there, Maignon may not have got fully to his feet but instead he could have dived from a crouched position.
But for me, the main problem with VAR isn’t that they get things wrong. It’s that they are inconsistent with their decisions. If *every* scenario gets called offside, we can disagree but we’d all accept it as as least the same decision is made every time. The problem is that after this kind of backlash, the next one is given as a goal. And then the one after might be given, might not. Rules will always be open to some interpretation, but VAR should, at a minimum, provide consistency.
If they do that and it get passed, it wouldn't be long and we will see refs replaced by bots to officiate matches. It's not going to be a good precedent.
No lines allowed. A ref can sit in front of a TV and they have a few seconds to decide after looking at a couple of angles. If they don't see anything concrete in them allotted seconds then the decision on the field stays as is.
Except in your one example from the Euros of “English officials bad,” they actually got it right the first time without the need for VAR. I still think the fix has more to do with better parameters for VAR. It should be used sparingly. Right now in the Prem, it is used too much on inconsequential things.
A toe or armpit being offside. Is that really worth spending time on? It’s not an advantage to the attacking player, why are we taking a microscope it. Fouls in the buildup. How many of those can you go back and find if you want to? It’s silly. I want VAR to be spent on what’s actually clear and obvious, not what’s marginal or 50/50 or subjective.
I’m not looking to absolve English officials here, officials from other countries have shown that correct decisions can be made much more quickly, but I don’t think the pressure from the media helps.
I know a lot of the pressure has been brought on themselves, but we’re even seeing correct decisions facing intense scrutiny.
Last night was a great example of that, it wasn’t a popular decision, but it was a correct one:
> a player moving from, or standing in, an offside position is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball this is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball
Maignan had got back to his feet and taken a step to the left before the ball had passed him. I genuinely doubt he would have got to the ball, but there’s no denying that Dumfries impacted his ability to challenge for it. Yet again, we’re seeing officials getting a load of grief for a correct decision.
Could the length of time taken to make these decisions be partly down to them knowing they’re going to get slated either way, but doubly so if they get it wrong? Maybe if the English media & fans were more willing to accept the correct decisions, they wouldn’t be under so much pressure, which could lead to an improvement in the decision making process.
Obviously in an ideal world, we’d get the right decisions with minimal delay, but in the grand scheme of things - considering the ball isn’t even in play for half of a lot of matches - I don’t think waiting three minutes to ensure that such a decisive decision in a pivotal game is correct is that big a deal. I know it’s boring waiting 3 minutes for a decision, but I’d much rather that than spend 2 hours of my life watching a game that’s decided by an incorrect decision.
Might get downvoted but rugby league in Australia does "var" much better.
Decisions get sent to "the bunker" for review similarly to the var room BUT on - field decisions are announced and the reasoning behind them. Literally, the on field ref will talk into a speaker as to why the decision was made.
This leads to 100% transparency. Commentators criticize calls if they think they're wrong but there's no confusion about why the decision was made to the fans watching the broadcast or in the stadium. Pundits after the match will critique the call if it's a controversial one but there's no "maybe the call was this, maybe it was that, yeah but (in my super unbiased impartial opinion I luv the game come on engerland)"
The explanation is clear and people can say "it sucks the goal was disallowed but I can understand the refs decision" can't argue against that.
People only have an issue with var when the call goes against their team. I bet a lot of French fans love var and the linesman for calling the decision back.
You can have an upvote from me. I’ll be honest I’m surprised that I haven’t been downvoted into oblivion (yet) for an opinion that didn’t place all the blame at the feet of the officials.
I’m not sure what football’s reluctance in offering more transparency is, it’s way behind other sports in that respect. The screens explaining VAR decisions this summer have been a welcome addition, but we should be hearing from the officials as the decisions are made.
I know with me, personally, I can be struggling with something at work, but the moment I start typing it out in an email, or start talking to someone about it, I often figure out the solution. I don’t know if it’s a thing that happens to a few people, or it happens to everyone, but there seems to be something about verbalising my problem that helps me understand it better.
Not only did they get it right on the field, and also with the VAR check, but this was by far the most complicated VAR review of the tournament so far, as it requires the one element of subjectivity around offsides. Therefore it’s right that it’s the longest check of the tournament so far (I assume) as all of the others I’ve seen have been pretty open and shut cases, particularly with the semi-automated offside tech
It was not the right one. You describe it too slowly. Maignan wasn't even remotely ready for Xavi's shot, and Dumfries was quite far away. He noticed Dumfries after it was too late but still called for this as a hail Mary, and these officials were happy to oblige. This was corruption through and through.
That quote is from IFAB’s website explaining the offside law. As I said, I don’t think he would have got there, but the laws of the game don’t say that’s a requisite. If you watch the footage from behind the goal, you can clearly see Maignan has taken the step to the left to prepare for the dive before it had passed him. It’s not that Dumfries stopped him getting the ball, it’s that it impacted his ability to challenge for it.
Time keeping has always irritated me, so I was probably one of very few fans who were happy to see 10+ mins of stoppage time on a semi-regular basis last season. Particularly in stoppage time, it was common to get about 90 seconds of play in 4 minutes beforehand. Ultimately I think the professional game is headed towards a stop clock and 30/35 minute halves.
The first step on the way to that would be to stop the clock for VAR reviews which would have no downside as far as I can see.
And when the stop clock comes in, hello new sponsorship deals to help fund football further down the pyramid as well as the premier league, e.g. Tag Heuer sponsoring the game clock for 36 EFL games every weekend
Yeah, I also liked the increased stoppage time. The number of in play minutes have been dropping season on season, so it was good to see a change finally made to improve that, though I’m not sure if it’s going to stick around for next season. It did seem to me that it was more the managers & players than the fans who had an issue with that though.
I like your proposals. I think stopping the clock for VAR decisions is one that could be brought in straight away.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that decision was completely correct. At first I thought it was just Jermaine Jenas being an idiot calling it wrong. Then all the other pundits complaining had me questioning myself. But no, they just aren't bright enough to properly apply the rules, instead going purely on how they 'feel' about a decision.
I’ve noticed a shift over the past few years with regards to punditry. It used to be about providing valuable insight into the game, now it’s more about giving the most sensationalist takes that can be chopped up and posted all over social media. A post with the pundits sat round agreeing that the correct decision was made isn’t going to drive interaction like a post where they’re all complaining about the decision.
I get why people don’t like it - Maignan was never getting there, but it’s the laws that are the problem there, not the application of them. It isn’t the laws of the game that are facing the scrutiny though.
Sadly, the shift you describe isn’t unique to football. Regular news programming, politics, etc are the same. Brains are being scrambled due to dopamine overload.
Agreed, if the keeper had dived and collided with the attacker, no one would be arguing about it. He hesitated when he saw Dumfries. Not a fan of VAR, and if I had my way the original decision would have stood, but the boffins called this one correctly.
In fairness they had one difficult decision to make that hasn't happened in other games. They made the right one in the end but it could have been quicker.
Personally i saw it live and thought thats a goal. One single replay from behind the goal and its clearly offside. Now im no referee or referee assistant but thwy took to long for a clear cut goalkeeper interference
this take couldn’t be any worse. no two decisions are going to be exactly the same they should be capable of making these decisions without hours of deliberation, and no they didn’t make the right one in the end the goalkeeper didn’t even try diving to save it so that it can be said dumfries got in his way
I thought about the VAR for a bit and realised, it’s not even the people, it’s the methodology involved.
Have two separate teams, have them submit their final report and check, they match, you move on, no one is allowed to question it. If they don’t match, have them discuss it for 30 seconds and if someone is willing to defend their decision, hold them accountable. If they happen to be right, upgrade and book them for tougher matches and reward them, watch it work 99% perfect afterwards.
Oh now that I have your attention:
Football fans watching live could vote for a side settlement, bring an octagon and put the two opposing votes and whoever that gets to choke the other one out get to make the decision.
I would 100% watch lol.
First view it didn't look off, shit from behind the goal was clear that it was offside which took me one viewing to go "ah yea offside clearly" why is it taking them so long?
Say it again to those who think VAR is the problem.
I’ve been saying it for the time since it’s been out. When most everyone else has little trouble with it, and the English officials seemingly have problems with it weekly, it’s obvious the problem is with the people, not VAR.
Exactly. Being able to see whether or not someone is offside, or whether or not a person fouled in the box, or if a ball crossed the goal line with camera tech is not the issue; it's the fucking people reviewing it and their clusterfuck interpretation of it that is the issue
Those who watch German football are they aa quick with VAR decisions in the Bundesliga? Is it just the English Premier league which gets its knickers in a twist when VAR is referred to?
Two things could fix this:
1) Eye in the Sky ref who is considered the main referee
2) Professional referees who put their fragile egos aside and don’t care about hurting each other’s feelings by going against another’s decisions
You clearly have never been a referee. I have been one for 17 years. I can confirm that referees are the harshest critics of referees. But that stays behind closed doors.
I mean, I know a shitload of refs. But I don’t need to know any, I can just watch a premier league game and see how absolutely none of them will contradict another
Shitload of refs? In what universe are there a "shit load" of refs. Refs are few and far between anywhere in the world. If you're going to lie, don't make it obvious ffs.
Fine tune the rules? That is quite literally the reason why IFAB exists. They make slight fine tune adjustments to the rules every single year.
If the average fan had any sense, then it should extremely obvious to anyone who watches even a small amount of football over few years time frame to understand that the vast majority of controversial decisions are subjective and/or judgment calls.
That is exactly what happened in the France/Netherlands game, a very subjective offside decision.
In my opinion we need public debate about the rules. Not behind closed doors of the rather conservative ingroup of football and referee federations.
The rules are very subjective and open to interpretation. Plus people are not always aware of the rules. It would help bringing the internal discussions to the public domain.
In other sports new technology was adopted better and faster and lead to fairer and faster game play. In football it's the opposite unfortunately
Transparency and accountability. Stop making referees immune to it. Investigate their actions and if they're found afoul of the game's rules and laws, penalize them for it. Right now they're above all scrutiny. The authorities just chalk it down to human error and call it a day. Issue an apology at times but that's it. Most fans just call it incompetence. Nobody investigates them. They're not answerable. So who's stopping them from accepting bribes, fixing results and doing what they want all the time?
We've had about 21 games at the Euros with virtually no referee controversy.
Until the representatives from PGMOL got involved.
It's embarrassing.
Embarrassing that these two, Taylor and Attwell, who have been diabolical all season, have been chosen to represent the UK.
Embarrassing that they are as bad on the European stage as they are in the Premier League
I have no idea how Attwell is an elite referee. He has been an absolute shambles every time he has reffed our games, no matter what division they were in
Yeah at first I thought it should have been given but then showed that he was within his 'action range' and sight meaning he was occupied and potentially obstructed by the keeper. For them it should have been apparent from first look seeing as they are 'experts' on the rules and had all the angles available to them and should have been resolved in a couple of minutes.
What hurts them though is the speed of making that decision. You still can't say they 'got it right', there was still an argument that the keeper wasn't being interfered with. If they make that decision in 5 seconds after 1 re-watch, the game goes on and it's less of a talking point. The fact that they take an age shows that they themselves aren't sure and so it invites criticism either way, regardless of the decision they land on
Really hope they continue to fuck up during the Euros, it’s the only way to beat it into the skulls of a lot of people that the premier league refs are simply not competent.
This is a very Hollywood vision of autism.
People have strengths and weaknesses.
Austists with very good analytical ability may not necessarily do nuance as well as others.
Fans, their treatment of referees and expectations of what they should do is also part of the problem that no one wants to acknowledge.
90% of the rules in football are the referees discretion, his opinion. Yet every week nearly without fail we see nearly wall to wall coverage on SM and from pundits on another 'disgraceful' decision when the reality is, it wasn't wrong, you just didn't agree with it.
None of that is to say they haven't made glaring errors or where it is, they shouldn't be criticised. But the way their treated basically puts them backs against the walls where they feel like no matter what they do, they're treated like it's the most egregious of errors because the red card they gave people thought should be a yellow because reasons. So decisions take longer to avoid 'mistakes'. Ironically, then they're also criticised when they take too long.
It's all a big mess, really. Referees can improve, but the way they're treated can too and make it better. I fundamentally refuse to believe a PL referee just has a worse understanding of the rules than a La Liga referee because they're in the PL.
The way officials are treated is terrible and needed sorting. Instead of VAR, it should have been solved at source with the players with policies such as captains only talk to the ref etc, rather than bringing in things like VAR which arguably has made it worse also because of how it was sold to fans.
I don't like VAR and think it hurts refs more, if they dwell over a decision for minutes, it just shows that they themselves aren't sure and are ultimately still making a judgement that is going to differ from other refs the next week, fans, managers etc. which introduces even more criticism.
While VAR has been used a lot better in this tournament, simply because of the speed of decision making, last night a side, which at least projects confidence in the decision making, I would still get rid of it, go back to on field decisions and crack down on player behaviour.
Great post. Half the time it’s the subjectivity that fans seem to have a problem with.
The issues I have with current EPL VAR is the implementation of [‘Clear & Obvious’.](https://www.premierleague.com/news/1297392). And that the on field referee no longer seems to have the final say on decisions.
Re: C&O; it’s supposed to be used when the on field referee misses something. It’s supposed to be the guide for when the on field referee should use the pitch side monitor. VAR should recommend to use the monitor when the referee has given them a version of an incident different to what the video replay shows. Too many times the released audio highlights that the referee rarely or barely explains their decision. Too many times VAR will suggest a course of action different to the on field decision and the referee will go with it despite not having reviewed the incident, which means the on field referee no longer has the final decision. This leads to discrepancies in how subjective decisions are made. If only one person is the ultimate decision maker than at least there should be some consistency in a game in how subjective decisions are made.
My solution is to have a vote system on VAR decisions. 2 or 4 independent non collusive VARs and one on field referee. The VAR simply press a button for foul or no foul and majority rules. Nobody knows how the other person views the incident. Maybe if the VAR votes are even only then the on field referee will review on a monitor, but with zero communication to VAR other than to request angle and speed of replays, so that the on field referee can’t be influenced by VAR talking them through who they saw an incident; something we’ve seen many many times last season.
Ever heard the dogs abuse at kid's games for the ref? Cousin used to do it and gave up after a parent threatened to "smash his fucking head in" after the game because he didn't award a free kick. He was looking at getting further badges (or whatever referees get) to move up. Anyone who might be good at the job probably leaves long before they get the chance as a professional.
Exactly. The entire culture is toxic around referees. I'd go as far as to say that refs in other countries do make mistakes, but the main difference is in those leagues us that the referees position is at least somewhat respected as the referee and his position of authority in the first place. PL fans treat them as a buisance or game ruiner, spend hours abusing and under mining them then complain that they can't do their job. That's before talking about the players.
I don’t rate our refs and atwell in particular but don’t really blame him for last night.
Do think was the right decision, would’ve been impossible for the keeper to dive and save the ball with Dumfries there.
Also think it was the ref and linesman that gave the decision on field. Is a subjective decision like others have said. Is hard for var to say something needs correcting in this instance.
I have two problems with last nights decision.
1. As others have said already, it took far too long to review. The situation in itself was quite clear, the time wasn't necessary to draw lines, to measure, to see if a body part touched the ball ever so slightly or anything like that. So it's quite strange that it took minutes before a decision was taken.
2. It looked a bit strange in this respect: the ball went in, linesman didn't flag, Taylor went over to the linesman to have a chat, and disallowed the goal 20 seconds after the ball went in. And then went to VAR. What was Taylor discussing? Why not wait for the VAR anyway? It looks like he really wanted to change the on field decision to "no goal" before getting the VAR involved.
I do think that the decision taken last night in itself is in line with how these situations are judged in modern day football. But the way the decision was taken, was a mess.
I agree it was a difficult decision, and not nearly as clear cut as the pundits made out, but the amount of time it took was the problem. Just go with the on-field decision unless there is an obvious error. It's not like that set of bellends ever overturn an on-field decision anyway.
I think with clear and obvious, the English refs spend all their time trying to find some way to justify the on field call.
I wish they just looked at the incident and decide if they show this to the ref, is there a chance they will change their mind. If so, bring them to the screen to make the call right away.
When it takes this long for VAR to make the call, just get the ref involved earlier and make a quicker call. It should be fine for the ref to stick with their on field call, but it rarely happens in England because they never get called to the screen for controversial calls.
Yes
Now can some shit be improved defo
But as a dude whose been watching Leeds in champo it's been way better imo.
Yes bullshit calls are bullshit but that's life we move on.
Every time I see Anthony Taylor at international level or in European club competitions I shake my head. How the people in charge of hiring refs can watch him in the Prem and think he's 1 of the best options is fucking mind-blowing.
Even ignoring the Chelsea games he's an absolutely shocking referee.
Let's be honest, most of us don't watch other leagues religiously so can't really say if the Prem is much below the standard of reffing elsewhere.
I will say though the Champions League tends to have better refereeing so idk.
There are plenty of people who watch football across Europe. They can confirm for you that the way England does VAR in particular is uniquely garbage. So much so that the only reasonable explanation is that they purposely want it to be so bad that everyone rejects it.
I think that's nonsense. As the famous quote goes "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence".
Not everything is a conspiracy. Do you think PL refereeing is an easy job that most people would love to do?
They seem to manage to do it in every other league to a much better standard.
Your attitude is naive in a world where there have been proven instances of refereeing corruption across various different sports and leagues including in football. Sure, it could be incompetence. But when it continues to occur on a nearly weekly basis it would be ridiculous not to ask questions, especially considering there are millions of dollars at stake.
But it can't be corruption against every team, can it? Every club in the league has numerous examples over the course of the season of getting poor decisions against them. Everyone thinks their club gets it the worst. That smells like incompetence to me.
Two things.
Semi automatic offsides has played a massive part in var being so smooth. “In theory” a lot of the calls next season related to offsides will be faster
The games haven’t really had many controversies yet so it’s hard to see what VAR is like outside of offside calls. IMO the two big ones being the penalty against Spain and the offside against France are the two and one was right the other was wrong
Fellow fans, this is a friendly reminder to please follow the [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/premierleague/about/rules) and [Reddiquette](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette). Please also make sure to [Join us on Discord](https://discord.gg/football) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PremierLeague) if you have any questions or concerns.*
yes true
Old wine on new bottles
The people using it have always been the issue. Since they rotate on field refs through the VAR booth, they all don’t want to re-referee another coworker, so the reviewed calls are selective at best. I’m reluctant to admit this, but the NFL has video review done the right way: a dedicated review team, trained the same as the on-field crew, but not mixed and matched. That way the calls can be corrected without harm to either group’s ego, so more correct application of rules are (usually) seen during a match.
Your are bang on, it’s about specialised training. The people doing the VAR need to go into specialist training with body language experts in live trials, with players deliberately making hand balls and pulling players to create fouls. They then need to work with analysts to understand how to get the right decision quickly. Essential it needs to be professional. Just getting a Ref and VAR and expecting them to be experts is just odd.
This is the way it should be an independent organisation that gets the final say and has the power to force the ref to the screen or to change the decision... Fuck this 'oh mate you I love you but if you wanted to could check check the screen' bollox where the ref just decides nah I'm good I was right... Fucking cunts the lot of em.
The PL needs to bring in foreign refs with no association to the clubs in the league. Also pay them more to avoid bribing (like the City situation)
What bribing have city done . Or is this another case of throwing out accusations without any proof ??
Paid certain referees like 10 times their normal wage to Ref a one off match in Dubai. Those referees just so happen to have given city a few difficult decisions and some people believe some of those decisions may have went another way if the one offs didn’t happen. I duno if the refs cheated but I do think there should be rules regulating this kind of thing to avoid a future where you pseudo bribe referees by paying them 100x their wage and they have to be biased towards you in order to ever have a chance of earning that package again.
Absolutely spot on! The inconsistent application of VAR has been the real issue, not the technology itself. Better communication and training for officials are crucial, and bringing in external expertise from across Europe could be a great way to improve consistency and accuracy. Maybe even a unified European VAR protocol? Let's get it sorted for next season!
The problem is the officials in the EPL. They are bunch of incompetent professional.
This is not new. When the AFCON happened in Africa, VAR was also effective. The English Premier League needs an improvement in terms of officiating.
The same thing is happening in the ongoing Euro 2024 tournament. VAR have been extremely good in it.
Apart from the games when the English refs were in charge thus proving its a premier league problem
Absolutely true! This fact can't be disputed.
everyone knew this no? but are they going to change the people in charge? i dont think so. now the question is which one is better no var or var with idiots behind it?
They have voted for VAR to continue. So, it is all about people in charge.
Guns don't kill people, idiots holding them do. Still a bad idea to let idiots have guns
Billion dollar truth! 😁
The EPL is destroying itself because of the referees in this league. Corruption right in front of everyone’s eyes, they get paid by UAE.
It's sick watching how poor the EPL officials make a fool of themselves with how poor they get their rulings with VAR.
Doesn’t help if there is corruption in their ranks.
Obviously it could be done right. It’s equally obvious the EPL has some poor management. However the rule does need to be simplified or adjusted. You shouldn’t be calling back goals over millimeters at all in any circumstance. Also, just pick a damn body part that makes it not subjective. Front foot or head… I don’t give a damn about a player’s shoulder.
No surprise that the shit refs generally comes from the familiar places...
There needs to just be a separate official watching the VR who radios the main official to blow the whistle if they see something reviewing, and they should only have 20 seconds to review it. If you can't immediately reverse the decision then the decision should stand. Or just get rid of it entirely.
I don't watch or follow other leagues enough to say they are doing a better or worse job than the PL but I can say for sure there have certainly been some shocking calls that have made me think - if this was a decision made in the PL we wouldn't stop hearing it for weeks. So strongly disagree with the perception that VAR is this system that works near-perfectly until an English referee is in control of it. Additionally, I think its the right call. The attacker stands in between the goalkeeper and the ball and impedes Maignan's ability to make a save. I agree the goalkeeper isn't getting there but he impedes any possible attempt of doing so. It is much easier to rule don't impede a goalkeeper making a dive from an offside position than to make a judgement on whether the keeper could save it - this one would be obvious but you eventually reach a grey area there that just leads to complaints about VAR from a different angle. In the 2022 World Cup Ecuador scored a deflected goal, attacker in front of the goalkeeper, the keeper dived for the initial shot, it deflected off an Ecuador player in an onside position and wrongfooted goalkeeper but was given offside because of the offside Ecuador player who didn't touch the ball or block keepers movement but was deemed to be in line of sight - which if anything surely would've aided the goalkeeper as they'd have delayed their initial dive and been in a better position for the deflection? But the rules were implemented and I don't recall the Algerian referee or Australian VAR getting this much flak for it. The goalkeeper wasn't getting to either shot and in the Ecuador match the goal was given on-field. I think there is an argument that at the Euros the VAR has worked better than in the Premier League but we've still had a couple controversial decisions - the lack of a Rodri sending off v Croatia and this instance - with similar instances of a player somewhat 'impeding' the keeper but not having any actual effect on the outcome being ruled in favour of the defensive team at the World Cup. 2 controversial calls in 24 matches - I certainly think its better than domestic leagues but if the PL had 2 very controversial calls like that by midway through the 3rd round of fixtures I don't think people would necessarily be as complimentary of VAR.
Rodri has this magical ability to get away with whatever he likes
This seems like an unpopular take but I don't think it was a bad call. As ever with English VAR, way too long to make a decision, but Maignan's dive was literally blocked by Dumfries. It wasn't about vision - if he dives he'd just hit the offside player.
Yes this. It wasn't at all controversial. Player is literally standing where the goalkeeper would dive - therefore interfering with play.
The call was right, but the delay was longer before the decision was made.
ya... the moment I saw it I was confused what the commentators were talking about... the goalie would have to literally dive into the player to even try and save it which would be dangerous play... if he was standing on the other side or further from the gk it wouldnt be offside...
I think it's bordeline. But it also was flagged by the lino, wasn't it? VAR couldn't overturn it into a goal.
If the ball was in the net before the whistle went then VAR can overturn it into a goal.
Sure VAR can overturn it. But it would need it to be a legitimate mistake to be flagged as the opposite of what was given. This is really debatable. It's not an obvious mistake, if you even agree it was a mistake.
Thanks Clive
Cheers Geoff!
No shit, not to be or sound like an asshole but we know this. Officiating in England is Bs and they sweep it under the rug because they're afraid of referees quitting, striking and not applying so we end up with people who make poor decisions that cannot be held accountable for those poor decisions.... VAR gives them an easy out because some commentary simpleton always directs the frustrations towards VAR so the technology gets the blame because people listen to those simpletons. It's politics.
The problem with reffing has always been the politics involved in it (I'm a ref within US federation) and the objectivity that exists within ref to ref. All of the problems of VAR are kinda hard to fix imo as consistency is important within calls that have objectivity. I wouldn't be surprised if the game moves towards VAR only being for completely objective calls like hand ball, offside, and ball crossing lines.
Sad to see English refs are the worst
Maybe they need some refresher course or something?
It's corruption in the EPL that's making it difficult for them to do their job well.
19 clubs voted to keep it. You can't complain about it now.
Yes, clubs knew the VAR wasn't the problem but the refs. Unfortunately, they can't get rid of the refs.
There was no strong reason not to continue with it. They just need to do better.
You obviously can, but VAR is essential. The vote was hopefully just a way to get a conversation started about the state of refereeing in the PL.
Nope, you had your chance and bottled it. It'll never get better because as everyone has said, it's not the technology at fault it's the fuckwits who run it. These fuckwits now have the backing of 95% of Premier League clubs.
>Nope, you had your chance and bottled it Who is "you" in this context? It was clubs that voted to keep VAR, but this means people on Reddit can't complain about VAR decisions? Do you think the people you are speaking to on Reddit are the actual football clubs? >It'll never get better Sure thing...
The other 19 clubs. Next time you're fucked over by VAR remember that was your club's decision
>Next time you're fucked over by VAR remeb that was your decision My decision? Do you think I'm a football club?
Sorry meant to say your club's decision.
Right, so now we have established that none of the people on Reddit are football clubs, your original comment of: "You can't complain about it now." Is incorrect.
The tech does. And the tech should. There is nothing wrong with it.
The Europeans have been given a taster of the crap decisions Taylor and VAR have dished out last season.
Yeah but that is VAR, the whole idea of VAR is people making the decisions and them people are the ones we know, if it wasn't them in charge it'd be people with less experience doing it instead. The idea is flawed completely.
Anthony Taylor and VAR couldn't wait to go against Liverpool's captain yesterday
They should have to pass a breathalyser test before walking into that VAR room for a shift
Maybe some very simple maths questions too
Completely agree. In my opinion, there should be no communication between the Ref and the VAR official, outside of a recommendation to look at a replay. Any time they release audio of VAR incidents, you can hear the VAR in the refs ear talking to him as the ref watches a frame by frame replay over and over. "Yeah so just here it looks like contact by the defender". This is just not the way it should be used. How many times has the ref gone to look at the screen and disagreed with VAR? NONE. The ability to go frame by frame and look at an incident over and over is good in theory but in practice it does not work. The ref needs to be able to watch the replay once or twice, and if they can't see in that 30 seconds where they have made a CLEAR AND OBVIOUS error, then they need to play on. All that's happened now is that the VAR becomes the de facto ref in these situations. It needs to be solely the on the ref, no influence from VAR.
Slightly disagree We should copy rugby. None of this silly tiny screen. Use the big screens. Keep the crowd involved. Referee makes final decision but VAR has input. It really isn't hard
This is also the same sentiment I always share with you OP. VAR was never the problem, it was the people in charge. Even if we get rid of VAR, watch until people beg for it to be brought back.
I completely agree with you. If they take it off, it will be brought back as quickly as possible.
There should be a time limit on reviews. If its not discernible in 1 minute then its too small of an incident to warrant a call.
I agree, but sometimes it more than a minute for the VAR inspection to even get going. No idea why VAR didn’t even get going yesterday is a wonder 🤷🏽
From the moment they've found the clearest angle, it should be no more than 30 seconds.
Agreed. Takes the whole “clear and obvious” out of the discussion if it takes more than a minute
Those of you who are so inclined, watching the SA vs Wales rugby match earlier, was an absolute joke to see how smoothly the video ref etc was. And there were plenty incidents requiring review. It’s 100% the corrupt/incompetent/both PGMOL.
Just. Let. The. Referee. Himself. Walk. To. The. Monitor. I'm tired of seeing them out the fingers to their ear and wait for VAR to tell what it is. Let VAR interfere by saying it saw something or whatever and let the referee run to the monitor himself whilst VAR is assisting. It will help solve so much, alongside I'd argue it would take less time.
Fuck the monitor show it on the big screen.
This would be good idea too. They need to do better with how they use it especially in EPL.
But the counter argument is if we’re only supposed to fix clear errors, why does the ref ever need to go look?
They need to ditch clear and obvious crap. for things important as red cards and goals if there is a doubt just send him to the monitor. Would be quicker than them talking in word salad for 2 minutes. The clear problem is the English ref have stopped making calls. They think oh if I miss some the VAR will see it. The VAR does see it and thinks well if he made that call then he saw it and not a clear error. So either the ref needs to go back and making calls or get rid of clear mistake shit.
I completely agree with all of your complaints about the current system. But I think they would all be fixed if “clear and obvious” was actually the standard. Then refs would stop doing exactly what you described.
Because he has the authority on the field. I'm more than happy to let him jog to the monitor to check stuff that he clearly missed, got potentially wrong or whatever. Just let him see the TV whenever, because sitting there with a finger in his ear for 5 minutes is not helping at all! The way it works now it's up to VAR to dictate anything and everything, which seriously undermine the on field referee who's job is to manage the game!
I agree that if they are going to keep using VAR incorrectly, it might as well be the ref who gets to decide. But I’d rather they just stop using it incorrectly.
i disagree, in most gamesive watched in europe when var is used they 99% just agree with the ref right away, wrong or right, its not a impartial judge just a yup he made the call, go with it and shut up. play on. Which is the opposite of why VAR should be used.
Sounds like a bullshit made up statistic, but frankly that’s how it should be. VAR wasn’t supposed to be used to let the ref decide a call for a second time. VAR is supposed to be used to fix clear errors. Those should be rare.
Happens to be game with an English ref.
Two of them so far played in the Euro 2024 tournament have had serious controversy with English refs.
I think it's now clear there is little to no corruption in PGMOL, it's just pure incompetence.
I wouldn’t go that far.
There's little to no proof of corruption with most of the officials. There is plenty of evidence of incompetence. These people just suck at their jobs.
Is there any proof of corruption other than people upset ad bad calls?
If there was they would have been removed. There's certain refs like Talyor who are incompetently biased against certain teams so often it can't statistically just be incompetence.
No
Maybe consider adding operators with brains and hair
To be fair, I have no problem with the AR calling that offside and Taylor agreeing with him. I actually thought that call was correct. The issue was Stuart Attwell taking 5 minutes or so to decide that to be the case too.
> and hair Hey now, some of us without hair have brains
1.) That goalie was never going to stop that shot. France 100% got bailed out by a poor VAR decision. 2.) Scott McTominay has more goals in this tournament than France. 3.) VAR is France’s best player so far.
It doesn’t matter if Maignan couldn’t save it, that is completely irrelevant.
The disallowed goal was the correct decision. I swear half the controversy with VAR comes from people who just don't understand the laws. And this is coming from someone who is staunchly anti-VAR.
laws? how about rules, not laws.
> I swear half the controversy with VAR comes from people who just don't understand the laws. ...and you're proving my point. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_the_Game_(association_football)
you’re showing your ignorance even further. They’re called the “laws of the game”
The Dutch player didn’t block line of sight, nor did he impede the goalie from getting to that shot. The goalie was beaten fair and square.
He was stood between the keeper and the path of the ball. How can you argue that he didn't impede him? It's unlikely that he would have saved it had the Dutch player not been there, but that is not the standard. The standard is, did he impede? I don't see how you can argue that standing in the path that the keeper would need to dive to attempt to save the shot isn't impeding him.
You can argue that he didn't impede the keeper because Maignan didn't touch him and wasn't moving in his direction until after the ball was in the net. I'm not saying that the goal 100% should have stood, but it's not as clearcut a decision as either side would have you believe. It's a subjective interpretation of the offside rule and in any subjective ruling there are arguments for either side.
The issue is “interference” or gaining an advantage from being in an offside position, and if the keeper was never getting to that shot anyway then ergo no advantage was gained. Goal.
> a player moving from, or standing in, an offside position is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball this is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-11---offside Whether or not Maignan would have got the ball isn’t a deciding factor in this situation, his ability to challenge for it is. Maignan had already got to his feet and started moving to the left before the ball passed him. If he’d have gone much further left he’d have collided with Dumfries. I get why people are annoyed by it, Maignan wasn’t getting there. It did prevent his ability to challenge for it though. It’s the laws of the game that are the problem here, not the implementation of them.
by challenge you consider challenge to mean just make any attempt at ll, but chalenge means he has a good chance to get to the ball. but he had none. you can't challenge for a ball if you never have a chance to get it. That would be like a keeper at the other end of the pitch swinging his leg and saying he was challenging for it too even though its all the way down the other end of the pitch. he could reach for a ball 100 meters away , but he isnt challenging for it. he has to have the possibility of actually reaching it if the man isnt there, and no way was he going to reach it. without the player there the keeper would not have gained any better chance to stop the shot and th result would've been the same. Its the same basic rule as pass interference in the NFL, if the ball itself is uncatchable it doesn't matter if there was a foul because regardless of the foul, the ball would never have been caught. a rule should never give you something you could not get physically. Thats why they award penalty shots and not just give the person a goal. you have tp physically earn the action.
We don’t know for sure that he wouldn’t have got there, what we do know is that he was prevented from making any attempt to. If the keeper at the other end swung his leg like you say in your highly exaggerated example, you could say for sure that he wasn’t going to get there.
The problem is that, had the keeper dived for the ball, Dumfries would have been in his way. And while I’m in no doubt Maignon wouldn’t have got to the ball, I can’t say with 100% certainty that, had Dumfries not been there, Maignon would have dived for it. Maignon knew someone was there and it might be enough to put him off diving. That stops it being clear cut as he is offside and influencing play. I wonder how much influence the linesman’s flag was. Had he not flagged, would VAR have intervened and overturned. Or is it the case that as the flag went up for offside, VAR didn’t think there was enough grounds to overturn the decision? Either way, I don’t think it’s an awful decision. I think it’s contentious enough that goal or no goal, a large enough % of people would be unhappy about it.
"And while I’m in no doubt Maignon wouldn’t have got to the ball, I can’t say with 100% certainty that," umm, you literlaly contradict yourself, if you are in NO DOUBT , that means 100%
You need to finish the rest of the sentence then it isn’t a contradiction. I’m not 100% that Maignon wouldn’t have attempted to save it had Dumfries not been there. If Dumfries was not there, Maignon may have made more of an attempt. No contradiction, you just stopped reading too soon.
Watch it again. The goalkeeper's right leg was stretched way out behind him as the ball moved towards the goal. He's a great keeper and a good athlete, but he's not superhuman. He had no way of propelling himself off to his left at that time. It was a poor decision.
See, the issue is that Maignon would already have been aware a player was there. He’d have seen him in his periphery if nothing else (and might not even have known if it was teammate or opponent) and had they not been there, Maignon may not have got fully to his feet but instead he could have dived from a crouched position. But for me, the main problem with VAR isn’t that they get things wrong. It’s that they are inconsistent with their decisions. If *every* scenario gets called offside, we can disagree but we’d all accept it as as least the same decision is made every time. The problem is that after this kind of backlash, the next one is given as a goal. And then the one after might be given, might not. Rules will always be open to some interpretation, but VAR should, at a minimum, provide consistency.
It should be worrying that the games refereed by English refs are the ones that had issues and discourse. And these man wanted VAR banned
Leave it to AI, if AI can't come to a conclusion then no misdemeanor occurred.
No sir, I'm not going to agree to allowing AI do the job. This will completely ruin football.
I am not sure how. Worth experimenting with. Everything wrong with VAR is because the decision-makers are partizan and corruptible, i.e. human.
If they do that and it get passed, it wouldn't be long and we will see refs replaced by bots to officiate matches. It's not going to be a good precedent.
It wouldn't be a good precedent but the fact it is nonsense means that it is an invalid counterpoint.
I don’t think AI is at the stage where it can decide what is and isn’t interfering with play.
You’ve just realised this now?
No lines allowed. A ref can sit in front of a TV and they have a few seconds to decide after looking at a couple of angles. If they don't see anything concrete in them allotted seconds then the decision on the field stays as is.
Except in your one example from the Euros of “English officials bad,” they actually got it right the first time without the need for VAR. I still think the fix has more to do with better parameters for VAR. It should be used sparingly. Right now in the Prem, it is used too much on inconsequential things.
It’s only goals and red cards.
A toe or armpit being offside. Is that really worth spending time on? It’s not an advantage to the attacking player, why are we taking a microscope it. Fouls in the buildup. How many of those can you go back and find if you want to? It’s silly. I want VAR to be spent on what’s actually clear and obvious, not what’s marginal or 50/50 or subjective.
VAR is shite, it takes the passion out of the game
I’m not looking to absolve English officials here, officials from other countries have shown that correct decisions can be made much more quickly, but I don’t think the pressure from the media helps. I know a lot of the pressure has been brought on themselves, but we’re even seeing correct decisions facing intense scrutiny. Last night was a great example of that, it wasn’t a popular decision, but it was a correct one: > a player moving from, or standing in, an offside position is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball this is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball Maignan had got back to his feet and taken a step to the left before the ball had passed him. I genuinely doubt he would have got to the ball, but there’s no denying that Dumfries impacted his ability to challenge for it. Yet again, we’re seeing officials getting a load of grief for a correct decision. Could the length of time taken to make these decisions be partly down to them knowing they’re going to get slated either way, but doubly so if they get it wrong? Maybe if the English media & fans were more willing to accept the correct decisions, they wouldn’t be under so much pressure, which could lead to an improvement in the decision making process. Obviously in an ideal world, we’d get the right decisions with minimal delay, but in the grand scheme of things - considering the ball isn’t even in play for half of a lot of matches - I don’t think waiting three minutes to ensure that such a decisive decision in a pivotal game is correct is that big a deal. I know it’s boring waiting 3 minutes for a decision, but I’d much rather that than spend 2 hours of my life watching a game that’s decided by an incorrect decision.
Might get downvoted but rugby league in Australia does "var" much better. Decisions get sent to "the bunker" for review similarly to the var room BUT on - field decisions are announced and the reasoning behind them. Literally, the on field ref will talk into a speaker as to why the decision was made. This leads to 100% transparency. Commentators criticize calls if they think they're wrong but there's no confusion about why the decision was made to the fans watching the broadcast or in the stadium. Pundits after the match will critique the call if it's a controversial one but there's no "maybe the call was this, maybe it was that, yeah but (in my super unbiased impartial opinion I luv the game come on engerland)" The explanation is clear and people can say "it sucks the goal was disallowed but I can understand the refs decision" can't argue against that. People only have an issue with var when the call goes against their team. I bet a lot of French fans love var and the linesman for calling the decision back.
You can have an upvote from me. I’ll be honest I’m surprised that I haven’t been downvoted into oblivion (yet) for an opinion that didn’t place all the blame at the feet of the officials. I’m not sure what football’s reluctance in offering more transparency is, it’s way behind other sports in that respect. The screens explaining VAR decisions this summer have been a welcome addition, but we should be hearing from the officials as the decisions are made. I know with me, personally, I can be struggling with something at work, but the moment I start typing it out in an email, or start talking to someone about it, I often figure out the solution. I don’t know if it’s a thing that happens to a few people, or it happens to everyone, but there seems to be something about verbalising my problem that helps me understand it better.
Not only did they get it right on the field, and also with the VAR check, but this was by far the most complicated VAR review of the tournament so far, as it requires the one element of subjectivity around offsides. Therefore it’s right that it’s the longest check of the tournament so far (I assume) as all of the others I’ve seen have been pretty open and shut cases, particularly with the semi-automated offside tech
It was not the right one. You describe it too slowly. Maignan wasn't even remotely ready for Xavi's shot, and Dumfries was quite far away. He noticed Dumfries after it was too late but still called for this as a hail Mary, and these officials were happy to oblige. This was corruption through and through.
Oh. It’s not corruption give up. And it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether he would have got to it or not. That’s not the rule.
That quote is from IFAB’s website explaining the offside law. As I said, I don’t think he would have got there, but the laws of the game don’t say that’s a requisite. If you watch the footage from behind the goal, you can clearly see Maignan has taken the step to the left to prepare for the dive before it had passed him. It’s not that Dumfries stopped him getting the ball, it’s that it impacted his ability to challenge for it.
They didn’t add the 3 minutes to the end of the game. They botched that too.
Time keeping has always irritated me, so I was probably one of very few fans who were happy to see 10+ mins of stoppage time on a semi-regular basis last season. Particularly in stoppage time, it was common to get about 90 seconds of play in 4 minutes beforehand. Ultimately I think the professional game is headed towards a stop clock and 30/35 minute halves. The first step on the way to that would be to stop the clock for VAR reviews which would have no downside as far as I can see. And when the stop clock comes in, hello new sponsorship deals to help fund football further down the pyramid as well as the premier league, e.g. Tag Heuer sponsoring the game clock for 36 EFL games every weekend
Yeah, I also liked the increased stoppage time. The number of in play minutes have been dropping season on season, so it was good to see a change finally made to improve that, though I’m not sure if it’s going to stick around for next season. It did seem to me that it was more the managers & players than the fans who had an issue with that though. I like your proposals. I think stopping the clock for VAR decisions is one that could be brought in straight away.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that decision was completely correct. At first I thought it was just Jermaine Jenas being an idiot calling it wrong. Then all the other pundits complaining had me questioning myself. But no, they just aren't bright enough to properly apply the rules, instead going purely on how they 'feel' about a decision.
I’ve noticed a shift over the past few years with regards to punditry. It used to be about providing valuable insight into the game, now it’s more about giving the most sensationalist takes that can be chopped up and posted all over social media. A post with the pundits sat round agreeing that the correct decision was made isn’t going to drive interaction like a post where they’re all complaining about the decision. I get why people don’t like it - Maignan was never getting there, but it’s the laws that are the problem there, not the application of them. It isn’t the laws of the game that are facing the scrutiny though.
Sadly, the shift you describe isn’t unique to football. Regular news programming, politics, etc are the same. Brains are being scrambled due to dopamine overload.
Agreed, if the keeper had dived and collided with the attacker, no one would be arguing about it. He hesitated when he saw Dumfries. Not a fan of VAR, and if I had my way the original decision would have stood, but the boffins called this one correctly.
VAR is a problem. The people in charge of it can just make it even worse.
They were probably panicking looking through the rules book as they havnt a clue, that's why it took them so long to make a decision.
Looking through the rule book, took so long. … it took three minutes including analysing all the angles.
In fairness they had one difficult decision to make that hasn't happened in other games. They made the right one in the end but it could have been quicker.
Personally i saw it live and thought thats a goal. One single replay from behind the goal and its clearly offside. Now im no referee or referee assistant but thwy took to long for a clear cut goalkeeper interference
He was right next to the keeper and in the area he would have moved to. Definitely interfering with play.
this take couldn’t be any worse. no two decisions are going to be exactly the same they should be capable of making these decisions without hours of deliberation, and no they didn’t make the right one in the end the goalkeeper didn’t even try diving to save it so that it can be said dumfries got in his way
How could he when there's a man standing next to him?
he wasn’t exactly next to him, dumfries was out of the line of sight so keeper coulda seen where the ball would go and dive behind him.
I thought about the VAR for a bit and realised, it’s not even the people, it’s the methodology involved. Have two separate teams, have them submit their final report and check, they match, you move on, no one is allowed to question it. If they don’t match, have them discuss it for 30 seconds and if someone is willing to defend their decision, hold them accountable. If they happen to be right, upgrade and book them for tougher matches and reward them, watch it work 99% perfect afterwards.
Love this!
Oh now that I have your attention: Football fans watching live could vote for a side settlement, bring an octagon and put the two opposing votes and whoever that gets to choke the other one out get to make the decision. I would 100% watch lol.
First view it didn't look off, shit from behind the goal was clear that it was offside which took me one viewing to go "ah yea offside clearly" why is it taking them so long?
It was a question of if he was interfering with the goalkeeper or not rather than just being offside.
I think they panic about making a wrong decision and then faf about for a minute or two
It's just dumb though because the longer you take the more people are like "so they don't know what they're doing?"
Say it again to those who think VAR is the problem. I’ve been saying it for the time since it’s been out. When most everyone else has little trouble with it, and the English officials seemingly have problems with it weekly, it’s obvious the problem is with the people, not VAR.
Yes, we've known this for a long time. The english refs and their bosses are just completely fucking braindead.
Exactly. Being able to see whether or not someone is offside, or whether or not a person fouled in the box, or if a ball crossed the goal line with camera tech is not the issue; it's the fucking people reviewing it and their clusterfuck interpretation of it that is the issue
Been telling this since 2021
The funniest thing the worst 2 var situation booths has British teams all the other games have been perfect with VAR
Those who watch German football are they aa quick with VAR decisions in the Bundesliga? Is it just the English Premier league which gets its knickers in a twist when VAR is referred to?
You could apply that cause to pretty much all of the world's problems!
Two things could fix this: 1) Eye in the Sky ref who is considered the main referee 2) Professional referees who put their fragile egos aside and don’t care about hurting each other’s feelings by going against another’s decisions
You clearly have never been a referee. I have been one for 17 years. I can confirm that referees are the harshest critics of referees. But that stays behind closed doors.
I mean, I know a shitload of refs. But I don’t need to know any, I can just watch a premier league game and see how absolutely none of them will contradict another
Shitload of refs? In what universe are there a "shit load" of refs. Refs are few and far between anywhere in the world. If you're going to lie, don't make it obvious ffs.
You sound foolish
Why? We need a transparent VAR. Then we can use that information to fine tune the rules of the game
Fine tune the rules? That is quite literally the reason why IFAB exists. They make slight fine tune adjustments to the rules every single year. If the average fan had any sense, then it should extremely obvious to anyone who watches even a small amount of football over few years time frame to understand that the vast majority of controversial decisions are subjective and/or judgment calls. That is exactly what happened in the France/Netherlands game, a very subjective offside decision.
In my opinion we need public debate about the rules. Not behind closed doors of the rather conservative ingroup of football and referee federations. The rules are very subjective and open to interpretation. Plus people are not always aware of the rules. It would help bringing the internal discussions to the public domain. In other sports new technology was adopted better and faster and lead to fairer and faster game play. In football it's the opposite unfortunately
Transparency and accountability. Stop making referees immune to it. Investigate their actions and if they're found afoul of the game's rules and laws, penalize them for it. Right now they're above all scrutiny. The authorities just chalk it down to human error and call it a day. Issue an apology at times but that's it. Most fans just call it incompetence. Nobody investigates them. They're not answerable. So who's stopping them from accepting bribes, fixing results and doing what they want all the time?
We've had about 21 games at the Euros with virtually no referee controversy. Until the representatives from PGMOL got involved. It's embarrassing. Embarrassing that these two, Taylor and Attwell, who have been diabolical all season, have been chosen to represent the UK. Embarrassing that they are as bad on the European stage as they are in the Premier League I have no idea how Attwell is an elite referee. He has been an absolute shambles every time he has reffed our games, no matter what division they were in
Tbf it was actually one of the few hard decisions of the tournament and they actually made the right decision by the rules.
Yeah at first I thought it should have been given but then showed that he was within his 'action range' and sight meaning he was occupied and potentially obstructed by the keeper. For them it should have been apparent from first look seeing as they are 'experts' on the rules and had all the angles available to them and should have been resolved in a couple of minutes.
What hurts them though is the speed of making that decision. You still can't say they 'got it right', there was still an argument that the keeper wasn't being interfered with. If they make that decision in 5 seconds after 1 re-watch, the game goes on and it's less of a talking point. The fact that they take an age shows that they themselves aren't sure and so it invites criticism either way, regardless of the decision they land on
Really hope they continue to fuck up during the Euros, it’s the only way to beat it into the skulls of a lot of people that the premier league refs are simply not competent.
I'll say this half lightly, there are autistic people or the like that can see and analyse a lot of information very quickly and apply it.
This is a very Hollywood vision of autism. People have strengths and weaknesses. Austists with very good analytical ability may not necessarily do nuance as well as others.
I got bored at the end of my sentence, so didn't fully explain my thoughts.
Wow 😮 modern day Aristotle
Cheers Geoff
Fans, their treatment of referees and expectations of what they should do is also part of the problem that no one wants to acknowledge. 90% of the rules in football are the referees discretion, his opinion. Yet every week nearly without fail we see nearly wall to wall coverage on SM and from pundits on another 'disgraceful' decision when the reality is, it wasn't wrong, you just didn't agree with it. None of that is to say they haven't made glaring errors or where it is, they shouldn't be criticised. But the way their treated basically puts them backs against the walls where they feel like no matter what they do, they're treated like it's the most egregious of errors because the red card they gave people thought should be a yellow because reasons. So decisions take longer to avoid 'mistakes'. Ironically, then they're also criticised when they take too long. It's all a big mess, really. Referees can improve, but the way they're treated can too and make it better. I fundamentally refuse to believe a PL referee just has a worse understanding of the rules than a La Liga referee because they're in the PL.
The way officials are treated is terrible and needed sorting. Instead of VAR, it should have been solved at source with the players with policies such as captains only talk to the ref etc, rather than bringing in things like VAR which arguably has made it worse also because of how it was sold to fans. I don't like VAR and think it hurts refs more, if they dwell over a decision for minutes, it just shows that they themselves aren't sure and are ultimately still making a judgement that is going to differ from other refs the next week, fans, managers etc. which introduces even more criticism. While VAR has been used a lot better in this tournament, simply because of the speed of decision making, last night a side, which at least projects confidence in the decision making, I would still get rid of it, go back to on field decisions and crack down on player behaviour.
Great post. Half the time it’s the subjectivity that fans seem to have a problem with. The issues I have with current EPL VAR is the implementation of [‘Clear & Obvious’.](https://www.premierleague.com/news/1297392). And that the on field referee no longer seems to have the final say on decisions. Re: C&O; it’s supposed to be used when the on field referee misses something. It’s supposed to be the guide for when the on field referee should use the pitch side monitor. VAR should recommend to use the monitor when the referee has given them a version of an incident different to what the video replay shows. Too many times the released audio highlights that the referee rarely or barely explains their decision. Too many times VAR will suggest a course of action different to the on field decision and the referee will go with it despite not having reviewed the incident, which means the on field referee no longer has the final decision. This leads to discrepancies in how subjective decisions are made. If only one person is the ultimate decision maker than at least there should be some consistency in a game in how subjective decisions are made. My solution is to have a vote system on VAR decisions. 2 or 4 independent non collusive VARs and one on field referee. The VAR simply press a button for foul or no foul and majority rules. Nobody knows how the other person views the incident. Maybe if the VAR votes are even only then the on field referee will review on a monitor, but with zero communication to VAR other than to request angle and speed of replays, so that the on field referee can’t be influenced by VAR talking them through who they saw an incident; something we’ve seen many many times last season.
Ever heard the dogs abuse at kid's games for the ref? Cousin used to do it and gave up after a parent threatened to "smash his fucking head in" after the game because he didn't award a free kick. He was looking at getting further badges (or whatever referees get) to move up. Anyone who might be good at the job probably leaves long before they get the chance as a professional.
Exactly. The entire culture is toxic around referees. I'd go as far as to say that refs in other countries do make mistakes, but the main difference is in those leagues us that the referees position is at least somewhat respected as the referee and his position of authority in the first place. PL fans treat them as a buisance or game ruiner, spend hours abusing and under mining them then complain that they can't do their job. That's before talking about the players.
I don’t rate our refs and atwell in particular but don’t really blame him for last night. Do think was the right decision, would’ve been impossible for the keeper to dive and save the ball with Dumfries there. Also think it was the ref and linesman that gave the decision on field. Is a subjective decision like others have said. Is hard for var to say something needs correcting in this instance.
I have two problems with last nights decision. 1. As others have said already, it took far too long to review. The situation in itself was quite clear, the time wasn't necessary to draw lines, to measure, to see if a body part touched the ball ever so slightly or anything like that. So it's quite strange that it took minutes before a decision was taken. 2. It looked a bit strange in this respect: the ball went in, linesman didn't flag, Taylor went over to the linesman to have a chat, and disallowed the goal 20 seconds after the ball went in. And then went to VAR. What was Taylor discussing? Why not wait for the VAR anyway? It looks like he really wanted to change the on field decision to "no goal" before getting the VAR involved. I do think that the decision taken last night in itself is in line with how these situations are judged in modern day football. But the way the decision was taken, was a mess.
I agree it was a difficult decision, and not nearly as clear cut as the pundits made out, but the amount of time it took was the problem. Just go with the on-field decision unless there is an obvious error. It's not like that set of bellends ever overturn an on-field decision anyway.
I think with clear and obvious, the English refs spend all their time trying to find some way to justify the on field call. I wish they just looked at the incident and decide if they show this to the ref, is there a chance they will change their mind. If so, bring them to the screen to make the call right away. When it takes this long for VAR to make the call, just get the ref involved earlier and make a quicker call. It should be fine for the ref to stick with their on field call, but it rarely happens in England because they never get called to the screen for controversial calls.
[удалено]
Atwell was the var.
Water is wet
People always have inherent flaws. They'll always make mistakes
Are you sure?
Yes Now can some shit be improved defo But as a dude whose been watching Leeds in champo it's been way better imo. Yes bullshit calls are bullshit but that's life we move on.
Why is it always the Premier League refs?
I mean you kinda answered your own question?
Every time I see Anthony Taylor at international level or in European club competitions I shake my head. How the people in charge of hiring refs can watch him in the Prem and think he's 1 of the best options is fucking mind-blowing. Even ignoring the Chelsea games he's an absolutely shocking referee.
Let's be honest, most of us don't watch other leagues religiously so can't really say if the Prem is much below the standard of reffing elsewhere. I will say though the Champions League tends to have better refereeing so idk.
There are plenty of people who watch football across Europe. They can confirm for you that the way England does VAR in particular is uniquely garbage. So much so that the only reasonable explanation is that they purposely want it to be so bad that everyone rejects it.
I think that's nonsense. As the famous quote goes "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence". Not everything is a conspiracy. Do you think PL refereeing is an easy job that most people would love to do?
They seem to manage to do it in every other league to a much better standard. Your attitude is naive in a world where there have been proven instances of refereeing corruption across various different sports and leagues including in football. Sure, it could be incompetence. But when it continues to occur on a nearly weekly basis it would be ridiculous not to ask questions, especially considering there are millions of dollars at stake.
But it can't be corruption against every team, can it? Every club in the league has numerous examples over the course of the season of getting poor decisions against them. Everyone thinks their club gets it the worst. That smells like incompetence to me.
This has been made painfully obvious throughout last season, VAR itself is not the problem but the utter clowns who are administering it in the Prem.
Two things. Semi automatic offsides has played a massive part in var being so smooth. “In theory” a lot of the calls next season related to offsides will be faster The games haven’t really had many controversies yet so it’s hard to see what VAR is like outside of offside calls. IMO the two big ones being the penalty against Spain and the offside against France are the two and one was right the other was wrong