Dogawful Officiating

[AyeDubbleYoo]

2 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

It’s not the instinctive nature of the action - the VAR panel didn’t think there was an action at all.  They thought that the ball basically bounced off him when moving at speed.  It’s onside if he instinctively hits the ball. 

We don’t know that though, do we? They didn’t explain. I’m just saying there’s a line in the rules about instinctive actions that can make it not offside. They showed the screenshot on Sky last night. 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by AyeDubbleYoo

[Kaizero]

23 minutes ago, gbandit said:

It’s genuinely sad to think about the amount of money spent on VAR, and how it’s largely had a detrimental impact on the game, adding only further controversy and delays in a huge number of instances

 

It hasn't and it doesn't, though. We'd discuss horrid referee decisons in a much higher quantity of pages on N-O than we ever discuss VAR decisions. Plus the average delay from a VAR review is 50 seconds, just because some reviews take ages doesn't mean they all do. One just really, really notices and gets annoyed by the ones that do.

 

My entire argument is that the game, as a whole (not every specific instance of VAR use), has improved.

 

That said, discovering there's no unanimously agreed rules on how to use VAR amongst the referees in the PL was a horrid discovery  It makes no sense, the entire purpose of VAR is to ensure the literal definition of the rules are applied. There's no room for dissent and varying use of VAR depending on who is the VAR ref. The PL is, to my knowledge, the only league using VAR that doesn't have a unanimously agreed set of rules for how to apply and use VAR during a match.

[TheBrownBottle]

15 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

We don’t know that though, do we? They didn’t explain. I’m just saying there’s a line in the rules about instinctive actions that can make it not offside. They showed the screenshot on Sky last night. 

 

 

 

It was explained on the PL international feed.  Former ref Chris Foy had spoken to them and confirmed this was the case, and also said he agreed with them.  I’m agreeing with you that an instinctive action would make it not offside - the VAR referee, match referee and Foy all said that Felipe didn’t even act instinctively- they said the ball bounced off him, because he didn’t try to hit it with his foot.  Total bollocks, of course

[McDog]

2 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

It was explained on the PL international feed.  Former ref Chris Foy had spoken to them and confirmed this was the case, and also said he agreed with them.  I’m agreeing with you that an instinctive action would make it not offside - the VAR referee, match referee and Foy all said that Felipe didn’t even act instinctively- they said the ball bounced off him, because he didn’t try to hit it with his foot.  Total bollocks, of course

 

 

Looked to me like he tried to quickly clear it off the backline when I saw it live. I would agree.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by McDog

[TheBrownBottle]

13 minutes ago, Kaizero said:

 

It hasn't and it doesn't, though. We'd discuss horrid referee decisons in a much higher quantity of pages on N-O than we ever discuss VAR decisions. Plus the average delay from a VAR review is 50 seconds, just because some reviews take ages doesn't mean they all do. One just really, really notices and gets annoyed by the ones that do.

 

My entire argument is that the game, as a whole (not every specific instance of VAR use), has improved.

 

That said, discovering there's no unanimously agreed rules on how to use VAR amongst the referees in the PL was a horrid discovery  It makes no sense, the entire purpose of VAR is to ensure the literal definition of the rules are applied. There's no room for dissent and varying use of VAR depending on who is the VAR ref. The PL is, to my knowledge, the only league using VAR that doesn't have a unanimously agreed set of rules for how to apply and use VAR during a match.

But again, you’re never going to get a standard application, because it’s still open to interpretation - like any other set of laws.  One person’s ‘clear and obvious’ is not another’s - you’re always going to get varying use depending on who is the VAR ref that day.  You’re assuming that the laws of the game are not open at all to interpretation - when they absolutely are.  Irrespective of which league they’re operating in, this will be the case. 
 

PS 50 seconds is a LONG time to be stood waiting to know whether or not you can celebrate.  The spontaneity of the moment is gone - I can’t believe that anyone who’s actually been to a football match can’t see this.  This is meant to be an entertainment at the end of the day

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by TheBrownBottle

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, McDog said:

 

 

Looked to me like he tried to quickly clear it off the backline when I saw it live. I would agree.

 

 

 

He definitely did for me - he moves his leg towards the ball to clear it. 

[TheBrownBottle]

It used to take a hell of a lot for me to criticise a referee - it usually had to be epically bad; a Trelford Mills on a bad day type of performance.  Now, it’s every few games I’m fucking fuming - it’s increased the indecisiveness of the whistleblower and they know they can be ‘saved’ by the incompetent twat watching behind a monitor.  It works in cricket and rugby because neither sport has a pyramid structure and both are naturally stop-start.  Oh, and refereeing / umpiring those sports is a shitload easier as you’re not covering several miles a game with constant flowing movement across the turf. 

[Kaizero]

10 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

But again, you’re never going to get a standard application, because it’s still open to interpretation - like any other set of laws.  One person’s ‘clear and obvious’ is not another’s - you’re always going to get varying use depending on who is the VAR ref that day.  You’re assuming that the laws of the game are not open at all to interpretation - when they absolutely are.  Irrespective of which league they’re operating in, this will be the case. 
 

PS 50 seconds is a LONG time to be stood waiting to know whether or not you can celebrate.  The spontaneity of the moment is gone - I can’t believe that anyone who’s actually been to a football match can’t see this.  This is meant to be an entertainment at the end of the day

 

 

 

 

I would assume you start celebrataing a goal long before you see "VAR review", you don't wait until you see if "VAR review" pops up or not?

 

The crux of my argument is that it works a lot better in other leagues than the PL, which points to there being an issue with how VAR is applied. It now, to me, seems blatantly obvious that the issue is that the VAR refs don't have a set of rules that they all follow. Yes, it'll still be human subjectiveness applying decisions - but it'd be a lot less "random" if all the ref's followed the same set of rules for how and when to apply VAR. I can't fathom how VAR could have been introduced into the PL without all the ref's having a unanimous agreement on how to utilize it. 

 

Essentially, I am defending VAR as a concept as I genuinely believe it 100% improves the game when used properly. I am also saying I understand why English supporters are as up in arms as they are about VAR compared to other countries. This due to how it's against the very core purpose of VAR (ensuring the correct rules are being enforced so "errors" don't have as big an effect on the outcome of games as they used to) that there's not a unanimous agreement on how VAR is to be utilized. 

 

If the FA set a clear set of rules that all VAR referees HAD to follow, I have no doubt there'd be less controversy in the PL as what would be a "clear and obvious error" would be something set in stone, not up to the subjectiveness of each individual VAR referee. This is what it's like in other countries (can't say it's like that in all countries, but in the ones I am aware of at least) and you don't see the massive fan outrage in those places as you do in England. 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Kaizero

[Kaizero]

The accuracy rate (following the rules of football) at the 2018 WC was 99.35%. 

 

The average time for a VAR review at the 2018 WC was 15 seconds.

 

100% of all offside decisions at the 2018 WC was correct.

 

The amount of fouls committed went down 30% from the 2014 WC (no-VAR) to the 2018 WC (VAR).

• Zhang Y, Li D, Gómez-Ruano M-Á, Memmert D, Li C and Fu M (2022) The effect of the video assistant referee (VAR) on referees' decisions at FIFA World Cups. Front. Psychol. 13:984367. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.984367

 

--

 

In the Italian Serie A, there was a statistical bias for the home team from referees before the introduction of VAR. After the introduction of VAR, that home team bias went away.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

 

It has significantly decreased the amount of "diving" across all top divisions in Europe.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

--

 

It seems apparent it is the PL that are lagging behind and utilizing VAR wrong, rather than VAR itself being an issue.

 

[Turnbull2000]

23 minutes ago, Kaizero said:

 

I would assume you start celebrataing a goal long before you see "VAR review", you don't wait until you see if "VAR review" pops up or not?

 

 

I've pretty much lost the will for wild goal celebrations. It's a relatively mild 'get in there' until I'm confident there's no VAR review.

 

My wife was urging me last night to start fully enjoying goals again - and I gave it a proper go when Anderson netted....

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Turnbull2000

[madras]

7 minutes ago, Kaizero said:

The accuracy rate (following the rules of football) at the 2018 WC was 99.35%. 

 

The average time for a VAR review at the 2018 WC was 15 seconds.

 

100% of all offside decisions at the 2018 WC was correct.

 

The amount of fouls committed went down 30% from the 2014 WC (no-VAR) to the 2018 WC (VAR).

• Zhang Y, Li D, Gómez-Ruano M-Á, Memmert D, Li C and Fu M (2022) The effect of the video assistant referee (VAR) on referees' decisions at FIFA World Cups. Front. Psychol. 13:984367. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.984367

 

--

 

In the Italian Serie A, there was a statistical bias for the home team from referees before the introduction of VAR. After the introduction of VAR, that home team bias went away.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

 

It has significantly decreased the amount of "diving" across all top divisions in Europe.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

--

 

It seems apparent it is the PL that are lagging behind and utilizing VAR wrong, rather than VAR itself being an issue.

 

So we are both right, you can like it because it works where you often see it, we can dislike because it often doesn't work ?

 

Re the amount of fouls dropping across two tournaments and diving dropping, I'm not going to read them now bit is there a proven causal link to them as opposed to they happen less because the game has changed.

[madras]

3 minutes ago, Turnbull2000 said:

 

I've pretty much lost the will for wild goal celebrations. It's a relatively mild 'get in there' until I'm confident there's no VAR review.

 

My wife was urging me last night to start fully enjoying goals again - and I did just that when Anderson netted....

 

 

 

 

 

Experience should be your guide. Our first goal you knew was OK. The second (I was sat with the fatha-in-law) I said would be reviewed but on the first replay said it would stand because of the two deliberate touches by the defenders.

[duo]

2 hours ago, Kaizero said:

 

This is  just a straight up lie. Correct decisions are up 12% on average across a season, that means VAR is ensuring that the players on the pitch and what they do are what decide who wins the league and who gets relegatated and not a shit referee.

 

Who deems when a correct decision was made? Referees? very easy to paint a picture as to how you want it to be perceived.

[TheBrownBottle]

13 minutes ago, madras said:

So we are both right, you can like it because it works where you often see it, we can dislike because it often doesn't work ?

 

Re the amount of fouls dropping across two tournaments and diving dropping, I'm not going to read them now bit is there a proven causal link to them as opposed to they happen less because the game has changed.

Yep.  Correlation doesn’t equal causation and all that 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by TheBrownBottle

[TheBrownBottle]

23 minutes ago, Kaizero said:

The accuracy rate (following the rules of football) at the 2018 WC was 99.35%. 

 

The average time for a VAR review at the 2018 WC was 15 seconds.

 

100% of all offside decisions at the 2018 WC was correct.

 

The amount of fouls committed went down 30% from the 2014 WC (no-VAR) to the 2018 WC (VAR).

• Zhang Y, Li D, Gómez-Ruano M-Á, Memmert D, Li C and Fu M (2022) The effect of the video assistant referee (VAR) on referees' decisions at FIFA World Cups. Front. Psychol. 13:984367. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.984367

 

--

 

In the Italian Serie A, there was a statistical bias for the home team from referees before the introduction of VAR. After the introduction of VAR, that home team bias went away.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

 

It has significantly decreased the amount of "diving" across all top divisions in Europe.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

--

 

It seems apparent it is the PL that are lagging behind and utilizing VAR wrong, rather than VAR itself being an issue.

 

Again, you can cite all the studies you like - they’re still making qualitative and not quantitative arguments.  ‘Diving went down’.  Completely qualitative, pseudoscientific shite.

 

Also, a reduction in the number of fouls given is not proof that foul play has decreased - it is just as likely to be that referees won’t blow for anything which is not absolutely blatant knowing full well that their mates in the booth can pick up the slack - see Forest v Newcastle.

[TheBrownBottle]

44 minutes ago, Kaizero said:

 

I would assume you start celebrataing a goal long before you see "VAR review", you don't wait until you see if "VAR review" pops up or not?

 

The crux of my argument is that it works a lot better in other leagues than the PL, which points to there being an issue with how VAR is applied. It now, to me, seems blatantly obvious that the issue is that the VAR refs don't have a set of rules that they all follow. Yes, it'll still be human subjectiveness applying decisions - but it'd be a lot less "random" if all the ref's followed the same set of rules for how and when to apply VAR. I can't fathom how VAR could have been introduced into the PL without all the ref's having a unanimous agreement on how to utilize it. 

 

Essentially, I am defending VAR as a concept as I genuinely believe it 100% improves the game when used properly. I am also saying I understand why English supporters are as up in arms as they are about VAR compared to other countries. This due to how it's against the very core purpose of VAR (ensuring the correct rules are being enforced so "errors" don't have as big an effect on the outcome of games as they used to) that there's not a unanimous agreement on how VAR is to be utilized. 

 

If the FA set a clear set of rules that all VAR referees HAD to follow, I have no doubt there'd be less controversy in the PL as what would be a "clear and obvious error" would be something set in stone, not up to the subjectiveness of each individual VAR referee. This is what it's like in other countries (can't say it's like that in all countries, but in the ones I am aware of at least) and you don't see the massive fan outrage in those places as you do in England. 

 

 

 

The Forest game had Anderson’s goal changed because of a ‘clear and obvious error’ - i.e. the defender ‘didn’t deliberately play the ball and therefore Longstaff was offside’.  This obviously was incorrect, but it didn’t stop them chalking it off. 
 

It doesn’t improve the game one bit - it simply means that more contentious calls might be called correctly at a cost to the spontaneity and democratic structure of the footballing pyramid.  I’m far less bothered about that - I enjoy the human element of sport.  The only ‘fans’ I can imagine enjoying this nonsense are those who’ve never actually been to live football matches, and therefore football to them is just another TV program to watch.  They can go and grab something from the fridge whilst the VAR official makes up their mind. 

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

I must admit, I prefer VAR anguish to Aguero being stood 3 yards offside at a free kick and heading it in with impugnity anguish. It's progress, the delivery is not quite right yet though and arguably is so haphazard as to be detrimental. 

[Kaizero]

3 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Again, you can cite all the studies you like - they’re still making qualitative and not quantitative arguments.  ‘Diving went down’.  Completely qualitative, pseudoscientific shite.

 

 

 

The change in statistics coming immediately after the implementation of VAR - in comparison to how things were before VAR - and then continuing after VAR... It means it is a scientifically measurable direct cause of the effect of VAR being implemented. 

 

It's impossible to argue against. There was one set of statistics before VAR, those changed immediately and remained changed after VAR was introduced. It is cause and effect. There is obvious correlation between the two, jesus christ, man  

 

It is also obviously not "the game changing". It was a measurable immediate fucking effect after VAR was implemented. One day there was no VAR, the next day there was VAR. That's when the measurable statistics changed. That is what caused the change.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Kaizero

[thomas]

EU technocrats absolutely getting sturdy in the pants over seeing a once-proud english crowd huddling in uncertain anxiety, fearful of celebrating too soon lest some knobhead in a van rob them of their joy. Welcome to endgame, gentlemen. Checkmate.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by thomas

[80]

4 hours ago, Kaizero said:

 

https://www.espn.com/soccer/english-premier-league/story/4722849/how-var-decisions-have-affected-every-premier-league-club-in-2022-23

 

https://github.com/kennethleungty/English-Premier-League-VAR-Analysis

 

https://www.premierleague.com/news/1293321

 

For starters.

You realise none of the links provided here deal with the queries and objections raised, right?

 

The only relevent thing is the following quote from the Premier League's own website:

 

"In 2018/19, before VAR was introduced, the percentage of correct key match decisions was 82 per cent. With the help of VAR in 2019/20, it rose to 94 per cent.

 

Over the course of 2019/20, over 2,400 incidents were checked and 109 decisions were overturned by the VAR, an average of an overturned decision every 3.5 matches."

 

Again, there is nothing referenced in this article to back up the figures or explain how they're arrived at, which was my objection.

 

Interestingly, though, the second paragraph doesn't appear to tally with the implicit claims, on first sight. It effectively states that approximately 4.5% of on field decisions were reviewed and found wrong by VAR in 19/20.

 

One interpretation of this is that on field decisions had improved by 7.5% versus the previous season, independently of VAR - so 2/3rds of the 82%>94% improvement could not be attributed to VAR. That would mean 10.5% of on field decisions within VAR's remit in 19/20 were wrong, and VAR only spotted 4.5% - meaning VAR failed nearly 60% of the time on occasions it ought, by its own standards, to have gotten involved with.

 

Furthermore, the 19/20 figures don't pass the smell test. Presumably the figures relate primarily to the stated issues of 1) goals 2) penalties 3) direct red cards 4) offsides and 5) inside/outside penalty box location disputes. If VAR overturned approximately 5% of decisions as they claim, working out at 1 per 3.5 games, then logically there are only 20 such events per 3.5 games. In other words, they're claiming there were only a cumulative total of about 5.5 offsides, goals, penalties, direct reds and location disputes per game in 19/20. Seems low.

 

I went to whoscored.com and picked 5 Saturday games in 5 different months at random - 1) Crystal Palace Vs Man City (2 goals, 5 offsides), 2) Bournemouth Vs Wolves (3 goals, 4 offsides 3) Liverpool Vs Watford (2 goals, 9 offsides) 4) Arsenal Vs Sheffield Utd (2 goals, 3 offsides) 5) Southampton Vs Burnley (3 goals, 4 offsides).

 

So, on only 2 of the main metrics, these games averaged 7.4 events per game - despite averaging about 10% less goals per game than a typical match that season (2.4 vs 2.72). That's around 25% more events than the PL website claims normally take place, despite not including all the other event types like location disputes and penalties. Something seems off with these 'authoritative' figures.

 

Altogether, no, I'm not giving these sources credibility, as they don't verify anything relevant successfully. They're just unsubstantiated assertions.

[ohmelads]

4 hours ago, Kaizero said:

The accuracy rate (following the rules of football) at the 2018 WC was 99.35%. 

 

The average time for a VAR review at the 2018 WC was 15 seconds.

 

100% of all offside decisions at the 2018 WC was correct.

 

The amount of fouls committed went down 30% from the 2014 WC (no-VAR) to the 2018 WC (VAR).

• Zhang Y, Li D, Gómez-Ruano M-Á, Memmert D, Li C and Fu M (2022) The effect of the video assistant referee (VAR) on referees' decisions at FIFA World Cups. Front. Psychol. 13:984367. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.984367

 

--

 

In the Italian Serie A, there was a statistical bias for the home team from referees before the introduction of VAR. After the introduction of VAR, that home team bias went away.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

 

It has significantly decreased the amount of "diving" across all top divisions in Europe.

• Holder, U., Ehrmann, T. & König, A. Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football. J Bus Econ 92, 285–308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-021-01058-5

--

 

It seems apparent it is the PL that are lagging behind and utilizing VAR wrong, rather than VAR itself being an issue.

 

 

While there's some interesting quantitative data in the last two links, correlation doesn't prove causation. What they haven't considered is all the decisions not given, such as a non-award of a penalty or red card, which are just as vital. That's a huge thing to ignore when trying to determine home bias or any bias, but that is something which is of course impossible to analyse quantitatively. Likewise, the accuracy of decisions can't be objectively verified. It is always just an interpretation of the wording of the laws of the game and the incident itself. Take, for example, this line from your 2nd last link: "Lastly, we validated all VAR decisions by examining video recordings via youtube.de of the respective situations."

 

 

[Guest]

For me, if a defender attempts to play the ball to stop the ball going to an attacker who's offside, it's offside. Longstaff has no influence on Felipe doing what he did so should be a new phase and inside imo.

[Andy84]

That Anderson disallowed goal is the worst decision I’ve ever seen in football 

[Peppe]

I think they should take how beautiful a goal is into consideration when deciding if it's offside or not. Our goal on friday was lush, hence ut should clearly have stood 

 

Edit: Maybe also who scores. If it's a cunt you can be a bit stricter with the offside rule. 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Peppe

[AyeDubbleYoo]

31 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

For me, if a defender attempts to play the ball to stop the ball going to an attacker who's offside, it's offside. Longstaff has no influence on Felipe doing what he did so should be a new phase and inside imo.

 

It would work like that, they just decided he didn't deliberately play it (lol).