Last night, in front of a restless home crowd who were witnessing their beloved team being taken apart by the German juggernaut Bayern Munich, Chelsea defender Marcos Alonso shouldered into Robert Lewandowski and then when the Bayern man got past him, swung his arm wildly across the forward’s face and seemed to slap him. From one perspective it looked like a swimming motion, like Alonso was just trying to regain some advantage. But from another angle it was a pretty nasty slap.
On first look, the ref gave a yellow card. But the referee was alerted that he might want to have a second crack at the action and went over to the pitch-side monitor. 25 seconds later (which includes the time it took for the referee to jog over to the camera) he turned around and showed Alonso a red card.
That action was in stark contrast to what transpired this weekend in the Spurs match against Chelsea. Spurs midfielder lo Celso challenged for a ball against Chelsea defender Azpilicueta. In live action it looked like lo Celso had attempted to shield the ball – by raising his foot rather high and then coming down quickly – but also that something very nasty might have occurred because the Chelsea defender was clearly in pain.
The television replays showed lo Celso looked to have stamped on Azpilicueta. The main referee on the pitch was asked to wait, to hold the game while the VAR official checked the action. A few minutes later, word came back that there was no red card and play resumed. Twenty minutes later the head of officials for the Premier League announced that they had in fact got that wrong and it should have been a red card.
What I want to say, every fibre of my being is telling me to say, is that the problem with VAR is that the “Premier League referees just suck”. And that not only do the referees suck but they could potentially be biased or corrupt. But when I step back, I think what’s happening here is a lot subtler and has few main components.
The laws
There are a few objective laws but by and large the laws of the game are subjective and probably have to stay that way.
For example, what is a “reckless” tackle? We can’t measure the force that lo Celso applied to Azpilicueta’s leg (not yet) or the velocity of Alonso’s slap. So, we humans need to see what happened – and within the context of the game – decide whether Alonso or lo Celso were acting out of frustration and anger, whether there were previous clashes that predicated this foul and decide based on that information what type of foul to give.
This is what makes the Premier League’s implementation of VAR so strange. The official on the pitch should be the one to make this subjective call. A guy in a car park in Wirral will never be able to make the call the same way because he doesn’t have all of the information. And I think the League even knows this, which is why they have set the standard to the impossibly high “clear and obvious error.”
Referees aren’t going to want to overrule each other. They understand that the game is fast, the laws are subjective, and that the referee on the pitch has the best information. They are also a tight-knit community. They have to work together as a team and often cover for each other on the pitch. So, unless there is something glaring, they will be hesitant to overrule.
That’s why it is so important for the referee to go look at the pitchside monitor. The VAR official should be there to simply say “I think you need to look at this again.” Or “This tackle looks really nasty.” But it’s the official on the pitch who should be making the final call.
VAR is a tool
As a data-driven person I embrace tools which give me information. Things that allow me to learn from and correct mistakes are even more valuable as I can use them to correct. I think that most referees want the same. They don’t want to be subjected to public ridicule when they show the wrong player a red card or if they get a call completely wrong. And I think that if they had a tool which allowed them to make corrections in real time they would jump at the chance to use it.
So, I’m a bit surprised by some of the recent calls to scrap VAR. It’s like if I was a carpenter building a house and I bent 10% of my nails; would I just get frustrated and say “we need to stop using nails!”? Would I go back to a system that was even less accurate, that took more time, and that didn’t produce as sturdy results?
In terms of VAR, the nails work pretty darn well in almost every other construction site, so I wonder more about my batch of nails and why they aren’t working as well as expected. I might also wonder if there was a new nail-supplier that I could employ.
The reality is that the way VAR has been implemented in England has been less than ideal. Rather than throw out VAR, or some of the more radical and weird options I’ve seen suggested like change the offside rule to be something bizarre, why not bring the English implementation in line with the way that everyone else is doing it?
Offsides are checked very quickly and there aren’t any of those annoying computer lines on the screen. Meanwhile, red cards are checked by the official in the middle of the action. The longer we make these decisions last, the more we try to get into the detail of the incident, the less clear things are.
We need to use VAR as a tool for correcting major errors, quickly and efficiently. Not as a tool for looking at whether a player’s toe was offside.
The fans
What do we want from football? We seem to have two factions emerging in the discussion about VAR. Three factions actually. One wants to make it more precise, one wants to abandon it all together, and the third just hates the experience of VAR in the stadium.
I want to say that I respect each of these positions. They all have a logic and I don’t think any one position is more valid than others.
If we go down the path of wanting laws that are more precise – defining the exact segment of the arm that becomes part of the hand for purposes of handball – we start an arms race of sorts. This is the path that leads us to want to change offside so that there are lines on the screen. Or even more radically so that there is “daylight” between the attacker and defender. Which I have seen many interpretations of up to and including actual space between the attacker and defender meaning that the attacker gets a massive advantage, one so large that it essentially renders the offside rule null. This is the path the NFL took. This means more stoppages, more slowdowns, and more, ever-precise measurements.
The abandon it camp tend to include fans in the stadiums who hate the way that VAR works. They hate the fact that goal celebrations are less spontaneous. They hate the stoppages for rulings which are never fully explained. And so on.
Some of this is just adjusting to VAR. I know when it was first introduced in the USA there was this same reaction – “what’s going on, oh come on, this sucks” and those reactions when a goal was ruled out.
But just as equally fans absolutely love when a penalty is awarded (correctly) for a foul that the referee missed at first. We love it when a player is rightly sent off for a red card offense which we all saw but the refs missed somehow. And the majority of goals don’t require VAR intervention. You get used to the ebb and flow of VAR and you start to develop a sense of when a goal is probably going to be ruled out.
It feel like what we – fans, journalists, pundits, players – want is perfection. And I’m here to tell you you aren’t ever going to get it. Not even close.
Rather than using VAR to rule on millimeters we need to be using it to correct the huge mistakes. There will still be controversies and bad calls. There will still be subjective calls. There will still be mistakes. But VAR is not the problem. The problem is that the Premier League tried to implement VAR in a unique way, with ridiculous edicts not to use the pitchside monitors, rulings that the error had to be “clear and obvious”, and added in the rather absurd line-drawing thing to show just how close the offsides were.
And instead of a giant leap forward toward perfection VAR should be used as a tool to make incremental improvements. Instead of Stockley Park announcing that their VAR official was wrong, they should have allowed Michael Oliver to go over and look at the incident between lo Celso and Azpilicueta. If he ruled it was a yellow card, most fans wouldn’t mind. If he ruled a red card, most fans also wouldn’t mind.
But at least we would know that he’d made a decision based on all of the available information. So, let’s make VAR faster, make it cover almost nothing but big errors, and let’s let the people who have the best information on the pitch make the actual decisions. Let’s use VAR to help officials.
100% with you on this. The problem is not inherently with VAR. It’s in how it’s being used. If an offsides call takes 5-10 min, and comes down to millimeters and hundredths of a second, it’s not Clear and Obvious. And VAR isn’t improving the game if it’s used that way.
On the stamps and handballs and the like, there are going to be some pretty obvious errors corrected(see Maradona and Henry handballs). But there will still be some judgment calls that could go either way, and that’s OK, as long as the on-field ref is the primary decider, and it doesn’t take ridiculously long.
I think referee should double check each controversial decision on the pitch side monitor , and then that decision should be checked for clear and obvious accuracy by the VAR officials, after which a super computer should run simulations based on previously agreed correct decisions of similar plays.
Problem solved.
VAR is a tool and so is Mike Riley.
LOL!
Problem becomes – what is a clear and obvious mistake ? If an offside toenail is not clear and obvious, is an offside foot ? An offside head, fingers, knees and toes ? Or does the player have to be yards offside ? Gray areas of gray.
Great question. Stop drawing lines on the screen. Recognize that the frame rate of the television camera makes it impossible to tell about 10mm worth of call and accept all of that the same way that we accepted that linesmen didn’t get calls precisely correct before.
Was watching the Monterrey v. Club America match a few days ago, and Club America’s opening goal (around 18th minute) was disallowed on VAR review based on a (very weak) foul that started the Club America possession (about 10 passes or so prior to the shot).
That’s some weak tea.
Tim,
What a timely post , I m being serious now, you had it right when you said a foul is what the ref deems it to be foul.
Ramos just picked up the softest red card of his career for what surely looked like a blatant Jesus dive after a minimal touch.
Was there more contact than Jesus’ two hands on Ramos for City’s first goal?
Either one of these could’ve been called one way or another without much complaining from the neutrals.
Is anyone really neutral about Ramos? He’d need to get at least 10 more undeserved red cards to make up for all his BS over the years.
I think that there’s a tendency on the part of the refs to punish the defender much more harshly than an attacker. Nowhere is that more true than in the breakaway. That’s why if the keeper goes anywhere near a player on a breakaway (and doesn’t completely win the ball without touching the attacker first) they will almost always call a penalty. Same for the trip from behind thing. It doesn’t matter if the defender is trying to get out of the way, or the attacking player’s feet actually kick themsleves, any contact (and the player goes down and stays down) and it’s almost always a red card and a penalty.
Ramos is a thug and anything like that coming his way could be viewed as karma, but if this is what constitutes red card in advent of VAR then all hope is lost.
Btw, I’m glad City won and I can’t stand RM but still.
Personally I am #VAROut, can’t stand it.
Viewed from the stands your sense of a game feels very different, more impressionistic, less forensically focussed on Sky or BT’s narrative moments. Most often you won’t get slow-mo replays from a bunch of different angles, nor a constant stream of ‘expert’ commentary. The flow of information is limited, the game played at a hundred miles per hour. Blink or look away and you’ll have missed something important.
But that’s ok, as a fan I don’t need perfect information, I’m not there to call the game (shouting at the ref notwithstanding). I’m there primarily to enjoy myself. That’s why I don’t expect or even want perfection, this is reality, you expect a few bent nails. Bad calls, the feeling of injustice, the fightback, the joy and desolation. It’s all part of the melodrama. Who wants to watch a tv program that pauses randomly to retcon itself?
You may be right, maybe all it requires is a mental shift to a different cadence but I wonder whether the payoff is worth the cost.
I agree with your comments that the on field ref should be the one to review the replays, its silly that they don’t do it like that!
Its also interesting that there are so many other sports that use similar technology systems who have far fewer issues.
For example in Rugby the referee is miked up so the conversation between the on field official and the TMO (Television Match Official) can be heard which helps you understand the reasoning as a viewer.
Cricket is another interesting one – they use a VAR system but it is only used if a team elects to appeal a decision and they only get a certain amount of appeals (if they make an appeal and get it wrong they lose the opportunity to appeal again but if they are correct they don’t lose it). I wonder if this could be a way to improve the way football uses it e.g. they don’t check VAR unless the opposition appeal the on field decision (and only allow a certain amount of appeals per game)?
Agree with you on this Tim – VAR itself is not the problem.
Its a tool to solve a problem.
But the problem its trying to solve is the wrong one.
I *think* what happened is the problem was stated as:
“TV analysis shows up errors Refs make. What TV tech can resolve this?”
This then became a TV tech solution, with lines and angles and virtual-reality-spinning-round of camera angles to show players’ positions from various viewpoints (because that tech existed). In fact it became a showing off of all the tech TV has – and the format allowed analysis and pundits and {ahem} entertainment for the TV audience.
Which is all BS (for stadium fans and for TV audience).
The problem is:
“TV shows that Refs make mistakes. How can we reduce those mistakes as well as educate the audiences and players that rulings are subjective but that Refs are trained to be as similarly subjective as possible*”
Then we’d get using pitch-side monitors or the big screen in grounds as Rugby does) with quick decisions.
*obv the fact that PL Refs are a bit rubbish is the part that is also impacting the solution.
oh btw @Bill – I replied to your points about what a manager’s role is, on the previous post. Thanks so much for that.
Great post Tim. Really well written as always. I agree that VAR Itself is not the problem. The issue is how it’s been used. Mistakes by the game officials are inevitable and with multi angle ultra slow motion television replays everyone in the world knows about those mistakes. It makes no sense to have this sort of technology available but not use it to correct the mistakes. There have been and will be more growing pains and mistakes in the way the tool is used but for the sake of the integrity of the game we need to be able to correct errors whenever we can.
Very good, balanced review. Thank you.
I have been extremely irritated in the stadium by VAR as applied in the PL. It is frustrating as it adds delay and uncertainty and the decision making process is arcane and hidden from the fans. However you make excellent arguments and I agree with you 100%. The referee should be alerted by the remote observer to check issues where it is felt he needs to review a decision or see something he has missed. He should be the final arbiter not the remote observer. Measuring pixels to determine whether an axilla is offside is nonsense and the review should simply concentrate on a review of the action from a lateral camera and again the referee should make the decision when alerted to a possible offside.
Bill,
I entirely agree with you. The software used for VAR may be a little suspect, but it is consistently the same for every team.
What is not the same for every incident/team is the assistant referee interpreting the VAR images. One assistant deems a tackle in the box as a penalty – another assistant deems a very similar incident in another game as no-foul.
But referees since the game started have been fallible, and VAR should improve their mistakes — eventually.
The same VAR referee who made the error that PGMOL apologised for in the lunchtime game then was allowed to VAR the evening game on the same day., which had some strange decisions in it perhaps because the apology and the mistake out him under pressure. or he was just crap.
*put him under pressure*
it’s mostly in the premier league that var is so disastrous. the bundesliga doesn’t jam it up. it’s because, as tim predicted a couple of years ago, the referees in the premier league are simply awful.
the match official should be the only one with the authority to change his call; it should be a review that asks “is that what you think you saw?” likewise, the lines for offsides by a few centimeters is ridiculous. the original intent used to be give the advantage to the attacking player. if that player is clearly offsides, it should be called. however, if it’s marginal, the advantage should still go to the attacking player. in the chelsea/man united game when giroud’s goal was disallowed for offsides, how was he to know that his toe was offsides? if he wore a size eleven instead of a 13, it’s a goal. that’s a disgrace.
oh dear this isn’t good at all denilson passing no urgency at all.
I’m in a pub in London and Auba just scored an overhead kick. Consider this me live tweeting my hangover
I just cursed us all
+1
oh well at least I can go fishing on a thursday now.. sad face thing..
wow!
Auba just missed. Sorry everyone. That was absolutely my fault
I was on my knees on the floor in front of a bunch of suits who hasn’t noticed the game was on
Jesus
FA cup it is then
They don’t have the sound on but Martin Keown is talking so earnestly it’s like he lost his dad
In a whaling accident
And the insurance won’t pay out
Lol
The suits are hilarious. They are proper cockneys and they keep disappearing to the toilet and coming back rubbing their noses and looking shifty
john hartson needs the samaritans phone number.
That’s a bummer. I didn’t know if we would win but I was really confident we would make a deep run in the Europa league. Hopefully we can salvage this season with a good finish and clawing our way back into the Europa league spots. A season with no European football would be distributing
Arsenal’s Greek tragedy.
A couple of observations
1. The pitch looked very slow. Ball had no zip when being passed.
2. Lacs needs to be benched. Again.
3. Pepe needs to upgrade his decision making. Like urgently.
4. Bellerin was bad tonight. Like a girl who wore heels for the first time. AMN needs to play there on Monday.
5. Arteta is putting something in Mustafis food. Either that or he has slaughtered 7 black fowls.
6. Portsmouth will be rubbing their hands with glee at this showing. It’s like the opposite coach hired Mourinhos bus for the game.
7. Arteta will fill this under lessons learnt. I can guarantee it.
8. Too many people were putting evil eyes on that 2020 unbeaten run. Jealousy makes a person nasty. And looses you football matches
I noticed a lot of hesitation in Bellerin’s play as well. One simple sideways lay off that he can do in his sleep and he was so deliberate and careful about it. And he was overtaken when tracking back so I can’t help but feel that the injury has left him short of where he used to be. I hope he’s ok, physically and mentally
Haffy
I don’t think Arteta did anything wrong and I have no idea what lesson he could possibly learn from yesterday’s game. He selected his strongest team and I am 100% certain that he did not instruct them to play with the “handbrake on”. How many hundreds of times did we hear Arsene lament when his teams performed like that? I am certainly not suggesting the manager does not matter but I think we give the manager to much credit when we play well and to much blame when we don’t. Arteta can’t run on the pitch and kick the ball and just like every manager he is limited by the talent he has available and he is dependent on his players to execute. We are in 9th place and out of the Europa league because we are not a great defensive team and other then Auba we have no firepower and Arteta can’t instantly change that.
Auba is tied for the lead in the race for the golden boot and he has scored about 45% of our league goals this season. Our next highest scorer is probably going to finish the season in mid single digits. Arteta can’t invent firepower we don’t have.