VAR

[Luke8]

And I'm struggling to see why Gallagher says the fact the Man Yoo ref waved play on takes it out of VAR's hands, whereas our ref signalling a goal doesn't. 

Dean Smith mentioned in his interview today that our goal on Saturday was overruled by what would be considered the senior referee in charge of VAR whereas the exact same pairing (Atkinson and Coote) with the roles reversed for the Liverpool/Man United game left the decision with the on field referee.

He also made an interesting point about how VAR is being used quite negatively in his opinion i.e almost exclusively to rule goals out rather than give penalties etc.

[Lastfootstamper]

‘Soccer is not about justice.  It’s a drama – and criminally wrong decisions against you are part and parcel of that.’

Pete Davies

The issue is that those decisions can now have such a massive impact (hundreds of millions of them) that it's harder than before to chalk it off as 'part of the charm of the game'.

That's not the game's fault. Pump all the billions you want into it, it'll always only be 11 people kicking a bag of wind around a field. Much like paying someone millions a year rather than a few tens of thousands won't make them a better player, so football will never be more than the most important of life's unimportant things.

Does anybody on here actually think that decisions regarding the Villa are more important now than they were thirty years ago primarily because there's more money involved?

[KevinGage]

We don't win that game on Saturday (to go with the missed points due to duff decisions already this season), and we end up get relegated by the narrowest of margins then, aye.

We've already had a taste of the fun and games associated with a big club going down vis a vis  financial unfair play. I'm in no rush to repeat that anytime soon.

[Lastfootstamper]

Has any team ever been relegated as a result of season-long refereeing decisions?

[KevinGage]

I'm not Rainman so I can't recite every single crap decision across every single game that resulted in a team going down.

But Bolton a few years back had a goal not given towards the end of the season (the ball had crossed the line) which did for them.   

I have never really been an advocate of 'these things even themselves over the course of a season.'  That relies on a perfect balance of ineptitude. There is even less scope for that sort of thinking now with the stakes so high.

[PeterWithesShin]

Has any team ever been relegated as a result of season-long refereeing decisions?

Bolton for definite, Cardiff would have a strong claim as well.

[paul_e]

Has any team ever been relegated as a result of season-long refereeing decisions?

Bolton for definite, Cardiff would have a strong claim as well.

that'll be the Bolton that were days away from being wound-up just a few years later. That's why it matters that the game does what it can to get this right.

Does anybody on here actually think that decisions regarding the Villa are more important now than they were thirty years ago primarily because there's more money involved?

Possibly not but there are 2 big differences. The first is that clubs were rarely in so much trouble if they were relegated at the time:

It'a a few years out of date but that sums the problem up nicely.


The 2nd difference is that we can do something about it now, 30 years ago we couldn't so the question itself is moot.

[Chinchilla Bathhouse]

Has any team ever been relegated as a result of season-long refereeing decisions?

Bolton for definite, Cardiff would have a strong claim as well.

They didn't suffer season-long refereeing errors though, just a relatively tiny number of them - relative, that is, to the massive amount of footballing clangers their players made on the field across the whole season. That's the only thing that definitely did for them and all relegated sides, not a couple of dodgy refereeing calls.

[paul_e]

Also, it's not relegation but a shocking decision to not give Vidic a red card almost certainly cost us a trophy a few years back, I'd say that game alone works as a pretty big incentive for fans to push for officials to be better.

[Chinchilla Bathhouse]

And I'm not sure you can blame one bad ref for Bolton nearly going bust either.

[Lastfootstamper]

I'm happy with any football "injustice" ever never being righted. It will make not a jot of a difference to my life. I do hear you people that do, but blimey, football club supporting can be stressful as it is without piling that worry on the top. If you want to try to level the playing field, getting behind salary caps and drafts will do more than fretting over VAR ever will.

[paul_e]

I'm happy with any football "injustice" ever never being righted. It will make not a jot of a difference to my life. I do hear you people that do, but blimey, football club supporting can be stressful as it is without piling that worry on the top. If you want to try to level the playing field, getting behind salary caps and drafts will do more than fretting over VAR ever will.

Or we could do all 3?

And I'm not sure you can blame one bad ref for Bolton nearly going bust either.

So the loss of revenue from relegation had no impact and you can say, 100%, that bad decisions had no impact on their relegation?

[PeterWithesShin]

I'm happy with any football "injustice" ever never being righted. It will make not a jot of a difference to my life. I do hear you people that do, but blimey, football club supporting can be stressful as it is without piling that worry on the top. If you want to try to level the playing field, getting behind salary caps and drafts will do more than fretting over VAR ever will.

Well VAR is here now and not working so people are going to debate it. If a salary cap was introduced people would be talking about that as well, especially if it wasn't working.

[PeterWithesShin]

Has any team ever been relegated as a result of season-long refereeing decisions?

Bolton for definite, Cardiff would have a strong claim as well.

They didn't suffer season-long refereeing errors though, just a relatively tiny number of them - relative, that is, to the massive amount of footballing clangers their players made on the field across the whole season. That's the only thing that definitely did for them and all relegated sides, not a couple of dodgy refereeing calls.

Those bad decisions obviously cost teams, it's daft to think otherwise. There'll be a bunch of sides this season in the bottom 6-8 that are all much of a muchness, if one of them has a bunch more bad decisions go against them then that can be the difference between staying up or going down and had nothing to do with playing ability.

[Lastfootstamper]

I'm happy with any football "injustice" ever never being righted. It will make not a jot of a difference to my life. I do hear you people that do, but blimey, football club supporting can be stressful as it is without piling that worry on the top. If you want to try to level the playing field, getting behind salary caps and drafts will do more than fretting over VAR ever will.

Well VAR is here now and not working so people are going to debate it. If a salary cap was introduced people would be talking about that as well, especially if it wasn't working.

I'm going to call it now; VAR will never work in football in a way that improves the experience. Never.