VARsity Blues

“FOR YOU! Refereeing football in the Premier League while using VAR and getting the decisions mostly correct may have been the opportunity of a lifetime for you, but I don’t want your life.” – Head of PGMOL Mike Riley to the head of the Premier League.

How are you liking this VAR so far? This weekend I saw two calls that looked like clear fouls to me and should have been penalties – one for a foul on David Silva and one for a foul on Harry Kane. But in each instance the VAR official sided with the on-field official and didn’t call them fouls.

Now, I understand that there is a lot of leeway in the interpretation of the laws of the game. What constitutes a foul can and is interpreted very broadly. This highlights one of the major “flaws” of the Laws of the game, that they are interpreted subjectively.

For example, if I step on your foot it could be because I was trying to get out of the way or it could be because I was trying to tackle the ball away and I was a fraction late. Most fans would call the first a “coming together” and probably not want a foul (ehh.. mostly) and the second action a pretty clear foul.

We want subjectivity because we know that it’s harsh to penalize a defender when he trips and makes accidental contact. Or when attackers clearly seek that contact by running at a player and then making sure they draw contact by kicking out at the defender.

The problem isn’t subjectivity, then. Like the example above illustrates we need subjectivity in football and I suspect we will always have a degree of subjectivity in the laws.

The other option is to remove as much of that human choice as possible, for example, the new interpretation of the handball law. As it stands if any of the attacking players touches the ball with any part of the arm, that team cannot score a goal from that run of play. Since football was invented we have allowed accidental contact with the hand because we know that humans have arms. This change simplifies the rule but it also makes the rule feel extremely harsh on the attacking player because it runs counter to all of our football experience.

I think that IFAB recognized that this is extremely harsh because they didn’t recommend the same treatment applied to defenders. They did try to make the new defensive handball law more objective by saying that arm contact within the silhouette will be allowed as long as it doesn’t look intentional.

But you already know all of this. And if you’re a fan of English football you should also know that what constitutes a foul for a penalty is still wildly subjective. It changes from one referee to the next and even from one incident to the next by the same referee.

I have watched VAR applied in almost every league in world football. What it typically does is creates a situation where referees are often going over to a little television and correcting their calls. This is frustrating to fans in the stands because it takes so long and even infuriating when they overturn your goal and then award a penalty to the opponent – which happened multiple times just last year. But at least from what I saw last year in Serie A and other places, VAR causes the referees to rethink what they saw. It gives them more information to be subjective about. In that sense, it makes the calls seem more fair, more evenly called.

The way that VAR is being implemented in England is.. hilarious. What the PGMOL and others have said is that they want to limit the number of times that referees go over and look at a replay? Why? Speculation is that they want to respect the original decision and on-field referee. Ok but instead what we are getting is the call being shown to a second referee who has in every case so far said that VAR doesn’t show a “clear and obvious error” on the part of the on-field referee. In other words: some other referee might have called it the way that this referee called it.

But one unintended consequence of this “respect” for the on-field referee is that it exposes the fact that English referees seem to make penalty calls based on a hunch. They aren’t calling fouls that they see, they are making a gut call.

I’ve watched English football on television now for over 20 years. Almost every match I see an instance where the referee makes an on-field gut call, the instant replay shows that he was wrong and we just said “these things even out in the end”. It’s not just England, it’s every league. But it is only England where they are stubbornly refusing to tell the referee to go have a second look at the play. In every other league the referees are looking at the play again.

Look, this isn’t a tragedy. We are only 3 games in to the season. The referees association and the Premier League could still come together and get this call right. And all they need to do is review the major plays from this weekend. They need to use the damn technology.

Qq

18 comments

  1. Was the referee or linesman’s line of sight obstructed? Did they have their backs to the play? Were they trailing the play (ex. 25-30m behind)? If the answer is “no” to any of those three questions then the referee’s call on the field must stand. Otherwise, are we just heading in 10-15 years to just a figurehead referee on the field, officiating is done by “eyes in the sky” who flip on a “foul light” just like in hockey when a goal is scored… I can completely see a time when there’s a light that goes off to indicate an infraction was spotted on field and everything stops, the man on the ground listens to his earpiece while the players wait and ooops, pull the play back 40 yards. I think VAR is a very imperfect solution to mediocre refereeing and it will ruin the game.

      1. Do you mean league as in soccer league, or league as in sport league? I find American sports to be bad precedent, especially the NFL. I will get leaped on for saying this, but there is an American cultural obsession with “instant justice”, especially in sports. American football is completely unwatchable to me – a million rules, constant reviews, no flow. Watching it live is an excruciatingly halting experience. World football should aim to be the antithesis to American football – free flowing, minimal stoppages by officials, more of a platform for spontaneity than rehearsed plays and the over-coaching of meat robots. The problem in world football was poor officiating affecting important results, then recruit better talent to referee, train them better, pay the good ones as much as you’d pay a good player, but don’t turn the sport into a contest of camera angles and slow-motion replays.

  2. I was surprised Martial didn’t get a pen against Kelly and Cahill wasn’t sent off for his challenge on Martial for denying obvious scoring opportunity.

    Spurs probably should’ve had two pens. One on Son and the other on Kane.

    Did I say I wasn’t sure about VAR?
    I absolutely love it!!!! Lol

    1. On Kane, I think he dived. He actually pushed the defender down, outstretched his leg and stumbled upon def’s arm. So I think he initiated that resulting fall if anything. Classic Kane, what can I say…

  3. I can never have any faith in anything associated with mike (50th game) riley.
    I never wanted var and it will bring some funny moments like sir ‘arry kane not getting the penalties that his excellent full speed dives deserve.
    but the stopping of the games and not really knowing if you have scored so you hold back on celebrations until confirmation of nearly every goal is grinding.
    I would have prefered referees to be better paid and held accountable for the decisions made. then they might learn from mistakes they made or at least show us they reviewed the game.
    we should also have got european referees in and ended the northern (and tring) monopoly they have had for the last 30 years.

  4. OK, I guess I’m just tired of reading how people keep writing about how “Kane should have gotten the penalty”. So, here I am to tell you No. Kane is Kane is Kane is Kane, and he will never change. Rewatch the play as many times and from as many angles as you wish, and every, single, time – you will see the defender go down, Kane notice this and leaves the ball to go out as he plays (aka, decides to lean into and fall on) the defender to try and draw the penalty. It cannot get any more simple than that – Kane stopped playing the ball and decided to go for the high chance goal (PK), because that is what Kane did, and will always do. No Penalty.
    No disrespect to VAR or Dean haters, but occasionally a blind squirrel will find a nut – they got this one right.

    1. The going down of Kane is never a penalty and if pulling shirt of Luis on salah is a penalty then bundling down of martial is a pen
      VAR isn’t a perfect solution to ref wrong calls in English football

  5. Question: Due to an identity mix-up, when Andre Marriner sends off Guendouzi instead of Luiz, can VAR be used to correct the call?

  6. Keith Kackett said this would happen because of the lack of pitch side monitors. No senior ref is going to like being overruled and so no one is going to do anything.

    What I don’t understand why they can’t have it up on the jumbotrons for the refs and the fans, if their concern is the time it takes to walk over. Use the refs mics to let the fans hear the comms too. Rugby style.

    But VAR is no fix for bad referees. It does have potential to give them feedback/expose them. Why they are all out to make sure it fails.

  7. I will always dislike VAR because it robs us of the spontaneity of joy the comes from goals. That explosion of cheers in the stands becomes tempered and damped by the specter of VAR (ok, too dramatic but I really hate it). I am not concerned really about “getting more calls right” and accept human error as a part of the drama of professional sports; if people must have perfect refereeing, they should watch FIFA e-sports on Twitch. Additionally, for me, replay has made the NHL and NFL nearly unwatchable and I hate that it’s creeping into the PL.

  8. The way VAR is going is very similar to when TV reviews were first introduced in cricket,TV umpires were very reluctant to overrule their friends/colleagues – to the point of absurdity,10 years on the system works well.
    The critics of VAR are ridiculous in my opinion.I cant stand the vile little man but Mourinho was right recently, he said something like – it’s like thieves breaking into your house, complaining about security cameras.

  9. on sunday even though cameras and all the tech were available to review every ball in the headingly test. england and wales won when bairstow should have been out lbw but due to a pathetic rule you only get so many reviews the incorrect result was reached.

  10. JW1 SAYS: August 23, 2019 at 8:48 am
    Spirited thread.
    I’m an optimist– and this has me amped-up even more.
    With LAGunner upthread with ‘AttackAttackAttack’ and to go toe2toe.
    If Arsenal do so– I won’t be disappointed with the result, regardless.

    Liverpool started out as an unstoppable force 3 seasons back– sometimes losing by giving up more than they got. Very much OK with Arsenal emulating that ideal.

    Then work toward the defending part as soon as we can.

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