VAR - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

So with the new season kicking off on Friday with Melbourne City hosting Brisbane Roar, we will also see the VAR being used for all games this season. Referees have been getting training on it over the off season and thought it probably needs its own thread going forward if some of last years and overseas reviews are anything to go by.

Also you will see there is a blue button as well which I assume is to grant Sydney FC a goal each time again.

Jamie Cross doing the Wellington games by the looks. 

"OK Lads, question 1. If you're not sure if it's a penalty .... who do you give it to?"

Maccas now the official sponsors of the VAR

McDonald’s signs partnership deal with FFA. https://t.co/kLYgnLRH9q pic.twitter.com/OOFT72uD6l

— Hyundai A-League (@ALeague) October 5, 2017

Referees are allowed to have sponsors now..?

The TAB should sponsor ours.  A conflict of interest at an important time.

Isn’t that what all the buttons are for?

Marcotti reckons VAR is going well so far

http://www.espnfc.com.au/blog/espn-fc-united-blog/...

VAR aka the Sydney City benefit programme, has been a complete shambles. I appreciate it may take some time getting used to but instead of allowing a game to flow, it holds it up for around 5 minutes per query. I'm surprised the TV coverage doesn't go to commercials or are the FFA going to introduce commercial breaks in games as another money earner?

Also the officials manning the system are the same numpties that screw up decisions on the pitch so there still is not any improvement. 

I would suggest professional referees but then the FFA would have to go overseas to find anyone competent enough to be one. This current lot are as embarrassing now as the match officials in season one of the A League. Not one single ounce of improvement.

disagree - it's had some issues and there needs to be a bit more clarity for fans at the game when a VAR review is happening but if it stops that one shocker of a call per season then I'm ok for it to be worked on and improved.

Not just Nix games but others have suffered the same long winded hold ups because the VAR person needed to see the replay 5 or 6 times per different angle

not a fan at all.  Being used far too often.

I was thinking. What videos are being used for VAR?

It seems like there has been no increase in video angles, or technology with VARs introduction. In cricket, they have the hot spot cameras square of the wicket and trackers at either end.

If a game were not to be televised, yet have VAR in action, what cameras would be being used? I was thinking like a dedicated shot of the last person in defense for each team, and a shot of the ball at all times. Why do we not have an immedate shot for offside picture in pic of ball and last defender, as the first port of call like the no ball check in cricket?

Or are we just hoping broadcasters pick up enough detail? And no tv means no VAR?

Watched the FA cup game this morning which had VAR. Will the FFA roll VAR out to the FFA cup next year? Will the single camera sitting on halfway used for streaming on foxsports for 3 out of the 4 games per match day constitute enough for VAR?

Thwarting the VAR.

Kinda funny in some respects. I wonder if the A League will now ban flags of a certain size?

I shark you not, this was the actual imagery from the VAR in the United FA Cup fixture this morning. Look at the state of those lines. Looks like a toddler's drawn those in kindergarten.

Brings me to my next point. The BeIn sports coverage (with straight lines) showed that Mata's kneecap was offside while another broadcaster's lines show Mata onside - that's how close the call was. This goal was eventually disallowed. Should there be a margin of error for cases like this? One of those ones where Huddersfield probably wouldn't have felt robbed if it was allowed.

i thought if there was any doubt it should go in favour of the attacker or is this not the go anymore with the var system.

It means only clear offsides should be overturned.

Yep. But if the VAR sees it as offside, then they see it clearly. That’s where it falls down with offside decisions. 

At least with a penalty the VAR can go “I disagree, but I see how the referee may have reached that decision so I won’t interfere”

But if VAR sees a player as offside, there is no judgement call there, it’s clear to them. That also applies to the theory that an AR shouldn’t put their flag up for offside if they’re unsure. If they’re putting their flag up, it’s because they saw it as offside, there is no unsure. 

tl;dr VAR is the worst and only adds another layer of inconsistency to the decision making process. At least human error is consistent across all decisions, and doesn’t ruin the game as a spectacle. 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/apr/16/p...

And the full video

https://www.trollfootball.me/videos/view/var-situa...

What an absolute mess! What I'd like to know is how long after the hand ball did it take the VAR to contact the ref? Like did the referee not long after that blow half time or was there time for VAR to signal the ref before all the players had left the field as it sure looked that way.

Also very lucky the pentaly was at the oposite end to the one that the spinklers had been turned on.

Absolute shambles.

This is football now. Apparently. 

Can't got for a Fritz or beer at halftime in case the players are called back and you miss a goal...

Ultimately the correct decision though was it not?

Perhaps. Deliberateness is subjective though. Look at the positives, and not the downsides, gives a very one side analysis of the impacts. 

Is it though? Hard to consider it 'deliberate' when the guy is actively trying to pull his arm away from the ball. 

A-League VAR disaster a 'lesson' for football law makers

Now, usually I'm one to boo the shark out of the VAR, but this is an interesting read published by the BBC about VAR at the World Cup, thoughts? https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44658757

I guess there's a major difference between having a room full of top referees calling the shots from the video box compared to one A-League ref looking at things from above, but interesting none the less

Yep 99.3% correct is bludy good all right.

I'm quite astonished at how well VAR went at the world cup.

After watching it in the A-League, and a little bit in the Bundesliga, I thought this would be a total disaster. 

But they seem to have got it just about right now, aside from perhaps the handballs. 

I thought the one in the final was ok, but some earlier in the tournament were very iffy. I'm a little dubious on how it was policed in terms of intention, and also the rules themselves, because I have question marks around when intention should be taken into account. If someone's dribbling into the box and they flick it upwards, into the hand/arm of a defender, it seems definitely not intentional, and ridiculous that a penalty be given. And that happened early in the tournament. However, if someone shoots and it's a goal for all money, but hits a stray arm, I think that's a fair penalty, but perhaps the defender shouldn't be punished with any cards, as there was no intention. That's my opinion though and I think it would require rule changes, so just illustrates that handballs are indeed an area where VAR needs some work. Not a lot though. 

That aside, I think it's been a great success at the world cup. Those stats about decisions going from 95% correct to 99.2 or whatever are very good. Only 16 calls actually changed at the whole tournament, which is also very good.

The best positives I thought were the impacts on refereeing decisions in the first instance, and the impacts on the players' behaviour.

Although Neymar dived all over the shop, I swear there was a decrease in player diving in the box. They now know that if it's a dive, they just aren't going to get away with it. They'll still flop if they feel contact, but we just won't get the classic sniper dives any longer. Even Neymar himself did one of those in one game, but then got straight up, because he bloody knew. 

And I thought the on-pitch refereeing for the most part was excellent. VAR just takes the game situation totally out of the picture. I think it's really common in football for a ref's thinking to be influenced by the crowd, the time left in the game, the score, the pressure from players on him, many many other things. It feels like now because he knows his decision may not be the end of it, he's more confident to take the plunge and do what he thinks is right, even if he's afraid of getting it wrong, or making a huge call that totally changes the game. As a result, I think we get more correct decisions first up. 

So all up, I'd probably give VAR a 9/10 at the world cup.

However for the A-League, I'd give it a 1/10. 

Absolute chalk and cheese how it was managed during the two competitions. I hope the A-League was taking notes. 

good refs and better sporting body implementing it. A lot more money and camera angles. A league has been 4/10 I'd say as inconsistent use means no incentive to use change behavior. However, surely they'll learn from the WC experience too - it was fairly new last season 

Yea fair points. Will be watching this season with interest... I hope there are massive improvements

I mean overall hows the A league standard of reffing? Are any of them full time pro refs?

Great assessment paulm, agree with all of that. For me the only 'negatives' from VAR at the world cup came from increased scrutiny on rules that were being implemented inconsistently anyway, like whether or not a handball is deliberate. That's not actually a VAR issue, it's a refereeing issue, and if anything VAR could become the impetus needed to sort that sort of thing out over the longer term.