VAR in Scottish Football

[Dunning1874]

The only way VAR is acceptable is if the replays the referees are looking at are also being shown to the fans inside the ground. Aside from the issue that football generally chooses not to do this anyway, most of our grounds don't have screens in order to do so. Therefore it can't be introduced.

[johnnydun]

VAR is a pointless expense that clubs don't need.

If VAR got everything right then it would have to be considered, but it doesn't. Wrong decisions get awarded against us all the time, but we also benefit from wrong decisions too, just swings and roundabouts. This will be the same with VAR, just less often. Plus these decisions are still getting made by the same referees that we all find useless.

[Billy Jean King]

The only way VAR is acceptable is if the replays the referees are looking at are also being shown to the fans inside the ground. Aside from the issue that football generally chooses not to do this anyway, most of our grounds don't have screens in order to do so. Therefore it can't be introduced.

I've yet to see a VAR review being shown to fans while at EPL games this season. It's been replayed after the decision is flashed up on the screen. There would be no need for a ref to go to a putchside monitor if he could watch it on a screen. Also don't remember any of the VAR reviews at Hampden (Euros or Dykes v Israel) while at the games.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

 i feel like VAR is a catch 22; on the one hand it should be handy if a major refereeing error has been made (ie goalscorer is well offside, a player has been violently headbutted but none of the refs have seen it) but ordinarily those things are more often than not picked up on straight away.

Marginal/soft decisions where you're splitting hairs or contact is hard to determine on a first watch are where you'd want the benefit of a replay as a ref, but as much as there are laws of the game in place to help a lot of those decisions are the ones that come across as discretionary (ie who does the ball come off last for an offside which can look extremely hard to determine sometimes), at which point it becomes a bit shite to use it for those decisions anyway... especially if its ibrox or celtic park with thousands of angry goblins in the stands, some of whom will literally chuck broken glass at you or give you death threats online if you get the decision "wrong". Theres a useful get out of having a decision made in real time to buy a bit of leeway at present, but Var kills that.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Thistle_do_nicely

[lanky_ffc]

4 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

VAR will improve the accuracy of decision making, there isn’t really any doubt about that. 

The question is how much more accurate and is it worth the fundamental change to watching a game of football it causes to the match going fan? It’s a resounding no from me. 

6% is the figure quoted here:  VAR is getting it right despite football's wider mood of suspicion and distrust | Video assistant referees (VARs) | The Guardian

I'd still agree that it's not worth it based on the cost and the impact on the fan experience. Feels like a natural conclusion to all these years of putting refereeing decisions under a microscope and I'm not convinced the people that obsess over this will be any happier with the outcomes. 

[Dunning1874]

3 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

11 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

The only way VAR is acceptable is if the replays the referees are looking at are also being shown to the fans inside the ground. Aside from the issue that football generally chooses not to do this anyway, most of our grounds don't have screens in order to do so. Therefore it can't be introduced.

I've yet to see a VAR review being shown to fans while at EPL games this season. It's been replayed after the decision is flashed up on the screen. There would be no need for a ref to go to a putchside monitor if he could watch it on a screen. Also don't remember any of the VAR reviews at Hampden (Euros or Dykes v Israel) while at the games.

Exactly my point - the nonsense of not showing the replays at games leaves the fans in the ground with no idea what's going on for potentially several minutes which isn't acceptable. Governing bodies choosing not to do so when grounds do have that capability is ridiculous and betrays a shocking attitude towards fans. If they were showing the replays as they were being checked I'd have no issue with it.

As Scottish grounds don't have the ability to show the replays as the referee checks them even if the SFA/SPFL decided they'd like to, it shouldn't be introduced.

[velo army]

The thing I love most about football, and I do feel it unique to football, is the explosion of huge joy experienced when a goal goes in. Being able to just spontaneously combust with unbridled delight is something we generally don't give space to in our lives. Football gives us that, and the immediate injection of endorphins brought about by this sudden collective effervescence is both cathartic and nourishing. 

VAR denies us this and we can't watch football with the same childish abandon. McTominay scored against Israel and I paused my celebration as I waited on a voice in the ref's ear to confirm a handball or offside. 

Football is a human experience. In fact I'd say it's a religious and romantic one. We gather to celebrate our shared identity and we invest emotionally in an outcome we cannot control. The return is often painful but it's the possibility of the ecstatic joy that keeps us coming back. I do a lot of men's group work and I come across men who have literally never expressed joy like that. I'm sad for them but so fucking grateful that football has given me that.

VAR might make football more perfect, but in doing so it takes away the very thing that makes football so powerful.

So aye, get it to f**k.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by velo army

[Empty It]

Exactly my point - the nonsense of not showing the replays at games leaves the fans in the ground with no idea what's going on for potentially several minutes which isn't acceptable. Governing bodies choosing not to do so when grounds do have that capability is ridiculous and betrays a shocking attitude towards fans. If they were showing the replays as they were being checked I'd have no issue with it.
As Scottish grounds don't have the ability to show the replays as the referee checks them even if the SFA/SPFL decided they'd like to, it shouldn't be introduced.

no VAR decision should take several minutes, if it takes that long it's not a clear and obvious error.

[DA Baracus]

16 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Exactly my point - the nonsense of not showing the replays at games leaves the fans in the ground with no idea what's going on for potentially several minutes which isn't acceptable. Governing bodies choosing not to do so when grounds do have that capability is ridiculous and betrays a shocking attitude towards fans. If they were showing the replays as they were being checked I'd have no issue with it.

As Scottish grounds don't have the ability to show the replays as the referee checks them even if the SFA/SPFL decided they'd like to, it shouldn't be introduced.

It's worse than that. At games with big screens the replays aren't shown, but they do at least say what the VAR check is for, e.g. offside, serious foul play etc. Most grounds in Scotland won't even have that, so you'll just be guessing what the check is for, guessing why a goal has been disallowed, guessing why a penalty is given three minutes after an incident, guessing why someone is sent off etc.

[johnnydun]

Can a referee even be questioned or held to account after a controversial VAR decision?

[HibsFan]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

The only way VAR is acceptable is if the replays the referees are looking at are also being shown to the fans inside the ground.

What would that actually achieve though?

The Chris Mueller penalty appeal on Saturday is a good example. There are many Hibs fans convinced it was a penalty, whilst others (myself included) think there might have been some contact but he made a meal of it. That's with us all having had two days to look back at the incident as many times as we like. Giving us the chance to watch it be analysed to death whilst live on the 'big' screen - and Easter Road is one of the only grounds in Scotland with that function now - wouldn't have done anything to change anyone's minds.

Football is a subjective sport with rules that were designed to stop blatant cheating.

The offside rule was to stop fat goalhangers standing by the post and kicking it in. It was not there to sort out whose toenail was nearest to the goal when a splitting through ball was played. We seem to have lost all fucking sight of this fact.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

8 minutes ago, HibsFan said:

What would that actually achieve though?

The Chris Mueller penalty appeal on Saturday is a good example. There are many Hibs fans convinced it was a penalty, whilst others (myself included) think there might have been some contact but he made a meal of it. That's with us all having had two days to look back at the incident as many times as we like. Giving us the chance to watch it be analysed to death whilst live on the 'big' screen - and Easter Road is one of the only grounds in Scotland with that function now - wouldn't have done anything to change anyone's minds.

Football is a subjective sport with rules that were designed to stop blatant cheating.

The offside rule was to stop fat goalhangers standing by the post and kicking it in. It was not there to sort out whose toenail was nearest to the goal when a splitting through ball was played. We seem to have lost all fucking sight of this fact.

Maybe, but i think dunnings point is that it at least involves the fans in the process. You might agree/disagree with the final call made but at least if you're in the ground and theres a way to watch replays of the decision being analysed it'd add to the overall tension/anticipation of the outcome.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Thistle_do_nicely

[Dunning1874]

1 hour ago, Empty It said:

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

Exactly my point - the nonsense of not showing the replays at games leaves the fans in the ground with no idea what's going on for potentially several minutes which isn't acceptable. Governing bodies choosing not to do so when grounds do have that capability is ridiculous and betrays a shocking attitude towards fans. If they were showing the replays as they were being checked I'd have no issue with it.
As Scottish grounds don't have the ability to show the replays as the referee checks them even if the SFA/SPFL decided they'd like to, it shouldn't be introduced.

no VAR decision should take several minutes, if it takes that long it's not a clear and obvious error.

It shouldn't, but they sometimes do.

32 minutes ago, Thistle_do_nicely said:

Maybe, but i think dunnings point is that it at least involves the fans in the process. You might agree/disagree with the final call made but at least if you're in the ground and theres a way to watch replays of the decision being analysed it'd add to the overall tension/anticipation of the outcome.

That's it. You're always going to have people disagreeing about refereeing decisions, VAR doesn't stop that and showing the replays to the whole ground as the ref checks won't do so.

However if there's been, for example, shirt pulling or an elbow thrown at a corner which is being looked at after the ball has been cleared out of play for a throw in 30 seconds later, then if the replay is shown to the whole ground as the referee checks then you at least know what they're checking for. Without that you're stood about without a clue what the potential infringement was, and with no screens in the ground at all you're remaining equally perplexed after the check is over and the ref awards a penalty, sends someone off or whatever.

[accies1874]

The comments on this tweet must be from a few years ago as VAR has stopped refereeing conspiracies

[Ludo*1]

As was evident in the Euros and as we see in some European countries, VAR works really well depending how it's implemented. We shouldn't be basing the whole tech on how disastrously England have implemented it.

Then again, we will have Steven McLean microanalysing a decision Bobby Madden has made with terrible camera angles. Brilliant.

[Ludo*1]

I'd honestly prefer refs to be mic'ed up like in rugby rather than VAR.

[DukDukGoose]

3 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

As was evident in the Euros and as we see in some European countries, VAR works really well depending how it's implemented. We shouldn't be basing the whole tech on how disastrously England have implemented it.

Then again, we will have Steven McLean microanalysing a decision Bobby Madden has made with terrible camera angles. Brilliant.

We base everything we do on the English league set up. Why would VAR be any different?

 

[DA Baracus]

35 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

As was evident in the Euros and as we see in some European countries, VAR works really well depending how it's implemented. We shouldn't be basing the whole tech on how disastrously England have implemented it.

Then again, we will have Steven McLean microanalysing a decision Bobby Madden has made with terrible camera angles. Brilliant.

I'd just rather no VAR at all. It simply isn't needed, in any form, and is for silly, angry fools. It adds  nothing to games and actively detracts from it.

If the 'price' is that some decisions go against your club, I'm fine with that, as I have been for decades of watching football.

A single decision doesn't relegate a team or stop a team winning something etc. Being pish over the course of a season is what relegates a team. Being not good enough stops a team winning something. I still laugh when you get shitebag managers claim that decisions can cost them their jobs. No, being shite will cost you your job. It's so easy to blame the officials rather than face up to not being good enough. These shitebags can't hide behind decisions now, even though some of them in England still try.

[10menwent2mow]

3 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

Exactly my point - the nonsense of not showing the replays at games leaves the fans in the ground with no idea what's going on for potentially several minutes which isn't acceptable. Governing bodies choosing not to do so when grounds do have that capability is ridiculous and betrays a shocking attitude towards fans. If they were showing the replays as they were being checked I'd have no issue with it.

As Scottish grounds don't have the ability to show the replays as the referee checks them even if the SFA/SPFL decided they'd like to, it shouldn't be introduced.

I don't understand why they can't do this. In rugby union the official watches the incident back on the big screen and this means all the fans can see it, the ref is also mic'ed up so the television viewers can hear the discussion between the TMO and the on field official. If you are going to introduce video technology, do it like this so it's 100% transparent. 

[Hoose Rice]

Who gives a shite with the paranoid "the old firm will get more this and that" the refs are corrupt c***s anyway.  Derbies with other sides and other games (f**k the old firm) will be better officiated if there's someone watching the mistakes the incompetent bottle jobbers there is just now.  They won't need to explain stuff like why Livi never got a penalty on Saturday it will be overruled and the ref will look a tit...it might actually make them up their game.