JonD wrote:I’m not sure how, if challenges were used wisely, UTP’s idea would minimise it. Wouldn’t that approach simply mean that each side would only request VAR intervention when they were certain of success? That being the case, they’d have infinite appeals every game provided their opponents kept transgressing at corners/whatever.

The scope of the VAR analysis is key of course. I remember a Wales rugby international where the ref asked the tv ref to confirm whether Shane Williams had grounded the ball over the tryline. He had, and the try was awarded. But the video clearly showed Williams stepping into touch earlier in his run...

Yes one challenge each if you win the challenge you keep it you get extra challenge if cup game goes to extra time

George Street-Bridge wrote:The problem then is there's a further excuse to generate unnecessary waffle when a challenge has been used up and an even more controversial thing crops up. Then the broadcasters will clamour for two, then three etc. The game just isn't geared to it in the way other sports are.

Cricket has three reviews. If a review is successful you don't lose it. That cuts out your unnecessary waffle argument. You are not going to have people asking for reviews other than the really big decisions. My view is give each team one review each half. If the appeal is successful then it's not lost.

From cricket also we know that where a decision is close the option is there for umpires decision stands. I really don't see the argument about breaking up the flow of the game. After all whenever a goal is scored there is a couple of minutes spent celebrating the goal.

I see your argument about broadcasters would want more for their own purposes. However that is hardly a reason for not introducing something that would improve the game. I can't recall any game going to an ad' break in cricket whilst a decision was being reviewed, nor indeed it happening when video assistance was required via VAR or in either code of rugby.

I don't say you are being patently absurd in fearing this. Just because something has yet to happen does not mean it can't. And to use a phrase like patently absurd about you or anyone else having an opinion would make me look stupid and very rude.

I haven't even started on who requests a review, whether they have access to video, where they sit. You can have a goal disallowed at one end and within seconds the ball is in the net at the other.

Cricket is a patently absurd sport to compare with football. It lends itself perfectly to video reviews. Every single ball is in effect an individual game, as is any point in tennis. .

George Street-Bridge wrote:I haven't even started on who requests a review, whether they have access to video, where they sit. You can have a goal disallowed at one end and within seconds the ball is in the net at the other.

Cricket is a patently absurd sport to compare with football. It lends itself perfectly to video reviews. Every single ball is in effect an individual game, as is any point in tennis. .

Which is why I also included Rugby League and Rugby Union. Both games improved by correct use of technology. Using your example with the lack of use of technology a team could have a perfectly good goal disallowed and the other team add insult to injury by scoring a blatantly off 'offside' goal a few seconds later at the other.

Stan A. Einstein wrote:

George Street-Bridge wrote:I haven't even started on who requests a review, whether they have access to video, where they sit. You can have a goal disallowed at one end and within seconds the ball is in the net at the other.

Cricket is a patently absurd sport to compare with football. It lends itself perfectly to video reviews. Every single ball is in effect an individual game, as is any point in tennis. .

Which is why I also included Rugby League and Rugby Union. Both games improved by correct use of technology. Using your example with the lack of use of technology a team could have a perfectly good goal disallowed and the other team add insult to injury by scoring a blatantly off 'offside' goal a few seconds later at the other.

My mate's a RL fan and he says the video technology is now making games last two hours or more it's all gone to far

What like disallowing a perfectly good Welsh try against the Anglo Saxons?

I would argue it's a moot point that even correct use of technology has improved either version of rugby, and of course there are still errors like at Twickenham a few weeks ago. I don't know what Superleague here does, but every video decision in the Australian NRL puts an ad for a major retailer onto TV screens.

For me the most insidious thing about VAR is it will reduce the incentive for refs at the top level to get everything right, and this will have a knock-on further down the leagues. You need them to be supremely confident, and this will diminish.

I'd rather have someone who is confident to the point of arrogance - as, say, Mark Clattenburg or Howard Webb come across - than a rabbit in the headlights like whoever it was did Spurs v Rochdale.

George Street-Bridge wrote:I would argue it's a moot point that even correct use of technology has improved either version of rugby, and of course there are still errors like at Twickenham a few weeks ago. I don't know what Superleague here does, but every video decision in the Australian NRL puts an ad for a major retailer onto TV screens.

For me the most insidious thing about VAR is it will reduce the incentive for refs at the top level to get everything right, and this will have a knock-on further down the leagues. You need them to be supremely confident, and this will diminish.

I'd rather have someone who is confident to the point of arrogance - as, say, Mark Clattenburg or Howard Webb come across - than a rabbit in the headlights like whoever it was did Spurs v Rochdale.

Again George you fail to look at what I said.

There will always be marginal decisions. Was that pass very slightly forward? Was he marginally off-side? Etc etc. That is why cricket allows the umpires call. In other words if the ball is only going to clip one wicket, the umpires decision stands, either way. What video can alter is the appalling decision. I agree that you shouldn't have every decision reviewed. However if as I suggested you allow one review on appeal I suspect that Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal would not have stood. West Germany would no doubt have seen Hurst's goal disallowed.

Good referees will make decisions and when they get them spectacularly wrong they can be challenged.Good decisive refs will be assisted. Poor indecisive refs will exist anyway. With any technology there will always be teething problems. What VAR can solve is the terrible decision.

Now I hear your point as per if you pass every decision to a video ref you would break the flow of the game. But that is not what I have suggested. As for your point that TV firms would seek to exploit VAR. I am sure they will, but that needs to be resisted. If VAR can improve the game, and I believe it can, then it should be used. My view is one review, I can see an argument for two.

Let the referees make decisions, give teams, limited by number, the chance to protest the demonstrably wrong decisions which effect the outcome of a game.

amberdave wrote:What like disallowing a perfectly good Welsh try against the Anglo Saxons?

When I give one about egg chasing I will let you know

I bet they where crying into their pink cowboy hats over that watching it on TV and then went to watch their Club sides

Oh hang on a minute !

Well, there's far too much previous for TV companies getting their own way for me to place any confidence in successful "resistance". It's just a pious hope.

I looked it up and Maradona's goal came after 51 minutes. There's a chance England would have used their challenge up by then, all the more so when Hurst "scored" in extra time. No-one's going to say "We'll hold on to our challenge just in case that cheating bstrd punches the ball into the net after half-time".

George Street-Bridge wrote:Well, there's far too much previous for TV companies getting their own way for me to place any confidence in successful "resistance". It's just a pious hope.

I looked it up and Maradona's goal came after 51 minutes. There's a chance England would have used their challenge up by then, all the more so when Hurst "scored" in extra time. No-one's going to say "We'll hold on to our challenge just in case that cheating bstrd punches the ball into the net after half-time".

No but it would make them think about stupid challenges and you get one extra in extra time

George Street-Bridge wrote:Well, there's far too much previous for TV companies getting their own way for me to place any confidence in successful "resistance". It's just a pious hope.

I looked it up and Maradona's goal came after 51 minutes. There's a chance England would have used their challenge up by then, all the more so when Hurst "scored" in extra time. No-one's going to say "We'll hold on to our challenge just in case that cheating bstrd punches the ball into the net after half-time".

Let's examine these two pronouncements.

Assuming your first contention is correct then your opposition to VAR is futile. The TV companies are going to get their own way in any event. Your opposition is merely a pious hope.

Your second point is wrong. I said if a challenge is upheld then the review is not lost. Therefore this review is a precious commodity and will not be used to challenge unless there is very good reason to do so. Had my system been in place England would still have had a review after appealing the Maradona goal. As would Germany after Hurst's. I also said one review each half. And by implication one for extra time.

VAR is new to football. There have been teething problems. No doubt as time progresses it's use will evolve. I don't pretend that it solves the problem of every bad decision or that it can. However whilst on the borderline decisions there will always be controversy, and that is probably a good thing, it surely can't be right that there is no mechanism that can correct obvious errors.

My brain is addled thinking through the practicalities of this appeal system.

There’d need to be a statute of limitations, of course. Then would the appealing team need to be explicit in what they felt the offence was, and by who? Or could they simply tell the ref there was a bit of jiggery pokery in the penalty area and hope the VAR spots something?

Lots to mull over.

JonD wrote:My brain is addled thinking through the practicalities of this appeal system.

There’d need to be a statute of limitations, of course. Then would the appealing team need to be explicit in what they felt the offence was, and by who? Or could they simply tell the ref there was a bit of jiggery pokery in the penalty area and hope the VAR spots something?

Lots to mull over.

But if you lose your challenge you lose the chance to further review. Also the decision can't be a marginal one. Using VAR properly stops the blatant mistake. If a team choose to make an appeal on a whim then they may get lucky but if they don't they put themselves at a very big disadvantage.

George is right when he says that cricket is a different type of game to football. However he misses the point. In cricket, if a decision is marginal the decision whichever way given stands. It is for a goal being given where the ball is punched into the net, where a player is standing clearly offside, or where a goal is disallowed for offside when the run was timed perfectly. That applies to any sport.

The point - and my starting point - is that the rules of any sport have to make it possible to keep playing the same way with or without the technology for it to be worth introducing the technology.

Unlike, say, when they changed the back-pass rule - OK, that's a different sort of change - has anyone viewed the VAR experiment in England as anything but a shambles? I suspect that's partly because the referees don't like it and don't want it to succeed (why would they?) but mostly because it doesn't suit a sport that needs to stop so infrequently.