VAR in Scottish Football

[Busta Nut]

That's fucking madness.

[craigkillie]

If they ran the system without testing it properly you'd no doubt be raging about that as well.

This is exactly why VAR is a pointless waste of time, it's not going to prevent a single bit of criticism of referees or stop the incessant conspiracy theories about literally every aspect of our game. When people go looking for issues in advance, they're always going to find them.

[invergowrie arab]

Yesterday on Sportsound Ian Maxwell explained it won't be a panacea, winter be perfect, won't look at every decision, decisions will still be taken by a human and they won't know yet how you communicate the information to fans.

To which nobody thought to ask why we are doing it?

 

[DA Baracus]

5 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

Yesterday on Sportsound Ian Maxwell explained it won't be a panacea, winter be perfect, won't look at every decision, decisions will still be taken by a human and they won't know yet how you communicate the information to fans.

To which nobody thought to ask why we are doing it?

 

No, because all the morons on Sportsound are rabidly for VAR.

[Gallo24]

The general consensus is that Celtic and Rangers get the majority of the decisions against lesser teams. So surely if the televised games (most likely including Celtic/Rangers every week) are refereed to a higher standard then this should benefit the lesser teams?

[IrishBhoy]

15 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

Yesterday on Sportsound Ian Maxwell explained it won't be a panacea, winter be perfect, won't look at every decision, decisions will still be taken by a human and they won't know yet how you communicate the information to fans.

To which nobody thought to ask why we are doing it?

 

If Ian Maxwell is involved in any way then I can be pretty confident in saying that it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster from the get go. The guy would struggle to run a raffle in a bowling club with 6 weeks notice, how he’s managed to get in to the position that he’s in at the SFA is mind boggling. 

[Dons_1988]

Ian Maxwell basically confirmed VAR will be utterly shite. 

I hadn’t realised that the protocol for overturning a decision was that if you can see why the ref gave it then it’s upheld, regardless of if it’s most likely wrong. Madness. What is the point? 

Offside is factual so shouldn’t be an issue. Except it clearly is and being half an inch offside is against the spirit of the rules, that’s simply not why offside was introduced. 

We’ve introduced VAR purely to tick a box with uefa/fifa that we’ve got it and we’re not a backwater. Utter, utter pish. 

[craigkillie]

Maxwell is just shite at explaining stuff because he is a man miles out of his depth. It's not "if you can see why the ref gave it", it's "only change the decision if there is a clear and obvious error". The rules are the same everywhere (more or less), so the way it is used here will be exactly the same as everywhere else in the world.

Maxwell's wording would imply that if there was an obvious dive, but from the ref's angle it looked like there might be a foul, it couldn't be overturned, which obviously isn't how VAR works. What he was trying to get at is that there are plenty of decisions which are 50-50 or even 60-40, and VAR shouldn't be intervening in those cases.

[VincentGuerin]

25 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

We’ve introduced VAR purely to tick a box with uefa/fifa that we’ve got it and we’re not a backwater. Utter, utter pish. 

100%

And I wish they'd show us the respect of just acknowledging this.

[Theyellowbox]

14 hours ago, Gallo24 said:

The general consensus is that Celtic and Rangers get the majority of the decisions against lesser teams. So surely if the televised games (most likely including Celtic/Rangers every week) are refereed to a higher standard then this should benefit the lesser teams?

But, is that any different from now? Rangers and celtic never get the lesser refs, especially for the games vs each other.

Where it is unfair is that has been pointed out, some games will get more coverage than others.

Generally, I'm for VAR, but 100% ready for Scottish official to totally cock it up and create more problems.

As an aside, out of interest, has there been any work done within stadiums over the summer to get things ready for this?

Assuming there will need to be some additions to some grounds, extra tv points, video screens, provisions for monitors at side of the pitch etc...

Also, with VAR, do we get goal line technology or is that separate from this? 

[Dons_1988]

11 hours ago, craigkillie said:

Maxwell is just shite at explaining stuff because he is a man miles out of his depth. It's not "if you can see why the ref gave it", it's "only change the decision if there is a clear and obvious error". The rules are the same everywhere (more or less), so the way it is used here will be exactly the same as everywhere else in the world.

Maxwell's wording would imply that if there was an obvious dive, but from the ref's angle it looked like there might be a foul, it couldn't be overturned, which obviously isn't how VAR works. What he was trying to get at is that there are plenty of decisions which are 50-50 or even 60-40, and VAR shouldn't be intervening in those cases.

He’s definitely shite at explaining then because he appeared to go out of his way to disregard “clear and obvious” as a terminology. 

[Salvo Montalbano]

The 4th official is only at lower league that are televised live so that they can take over if the referee gers injured and they don't have to delay the game waiting for a random punter from the crowd taking over running the line. In all the televised lower league games I've watched, I've yet to see them offer the on-field referee additional information (which as far as I remember isn't meant to happen anyway?). Equating it to having more camera angles or VAR/No VAR is a bit of a stretch. 

As for the folk "surely they'll be under more scrutiny if more games have more cameras, so it'll even up decisions in favour of smaller teams", I have a bridge to sell you. Much more likely the referees give more 50/50 (30/70) decisions in favour of the cheeks, knowing fine well that unless it's a blatant dive or nowhere near the arm or whatever, VAR will just say "not a clear and obvious error, original decision stands" whereas the wee teams won't get them and the opposite will be true. 

[craigkillie]

1 hour ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

In all the televised lower league games I've watched, I've yet to see them offer the on-field referee additional information (which as far as I remember isn't meant to happen anyway?).

The 4th official very much is supposed to get involved if they see an incident. It's part of the role. I'd be amazed if, in all the years of televised lower league games, they haven't been involved in having players sent off and/or managers getting sent to the stand.

Edited June 27, 2022 by craigkillie

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

1 hour ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

The 4th official is only at lower league that are televised live so that they can take over if the referee gers injured and they don't have to delay the game waiting for a random punter from the crowd taking over running the line. In all the televised lower league games I've watched, I've yet to see them offer the on-field referee additional information (which as far as I remember isn't meant to happen anyway?). Equating it to having more camera angles or VAR/No VAR is a bit of a stretch. 

As for the folk "surely they'll be under more scrutiny if more games have more cameras, so it'll even up decisions in favour of smaller teams", I have a bridge to sell you. Much more likely the referees give more 50/50 (30/70) decisions in favour of the cheeks, knowing fine well that unless it's a blatant dive or nowhere near the arm or whatever, VAR will just say "not a clear and obvious error, original decision stands" whereas the wee teams won't get them and the opposite will be true. 

The 4th official has plenty of input.  I’m not sure what you expect to see though?  There are four officials all with Comms equipment at these matches.  Unless you are tapped in, you wouldn’t know that communication is ongoing for the majority of that time.

It’s the same reason we have the weapons at every level screaming for a linesman/assistant referee to get involved.  What do you want him to do?  Flag when the referee has given a foul to say it should have been played on?  Assistant refs do the majority of their work through the radios.  The Laws of the Game were even tidied up a few seasons ago to make it not necessary for them to flag for obvious corner kicks and goal kicks.  You think they haven’t talked that through or do you think they guess?

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

3 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

The 4th official has plenty of input.  I’m not sure what you expect to see though?  There are four officials all with Comms equipment at these matches.  Unless you are tapped in, you wouldn’t know that communication is ongoing for the majority of that time.

It’s the same reason we have the weapons at every level screaming for a linesman/assistant referee to get involved.  What do you want him to do?  Flag when the referee has given a foul to say it should have been played on?  Assistant refs do the majority of their work through the radios.  The Laws of the Game were even tidied up a few seasons ago to make it not necessary for them to flag for obvious corner kicks and goal kicks.  You think they haven’t talked that through or do you think they guess?

Referees have also been quoted as saying in certain situations they tell their linesman to keep the flag down. I imagine they do that communication via the headsets.

Probably to avoid being forced into giving a free kick because the linesman has gone all Douglas Ross "RED CARD RED CARD". 

Edited June 27, 2022 by SJFCtheTeamForMe

[parsforlife]

As my understanding goes,  4th official is an additional set of eyes on the field of play,  they are in content coms with the ref,   they could easily see  a straight leg tackle on the touchline and say certain red to the ref over the comms device before the ref gets too the incident. To the outsider it looks like the ref has sprinted 50 yards to send someone off,  but in reality he has seen the incident. could be swaying over the card colour started sprinting to avoid overspil, heard his 4th official and maybe his main linesnan and made his mind up on what card to pull.

4th official then has main eyes on how the bench behavies. Mostly they'll be fine and they will keep their eyes on the game, but as soon as things flair up they are on board to sort things out and let the ref get on with things, often handling a situation with a a few words.   How the f**k are we as an onlooker meant to see a quick 'settle down or its a booking' comment?

I'll give refs plenty of abuse this season, but mostly that reason is cos I'll be a big biased c**t who'll see things from my teams perspective rather than anything they've actually done.

[IrishBhoy]

39 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

It’s the same reason we have the weapons at every level screaming for a linesman/assistant referee to get involved.  What do you want him to do?  Flag when the referee has given a foul to say it should have been played on?  Assistant refs do the majority of their work through the radios.  The Laws of the Game were even tidied up a few seasons ago to make it not necessary for them to flag for obvious corner kicks and goal kicks.  You think they haven’t talked that through or do you think they guess?

I remember when UEFA trialled the officials standing beside the goals at each end, and they gave them a baton with a button on it, which would alert the referee of a foul through a vibration on his watch. The English commentators would regularly be shouting ‘what’s the point of these officials, they don’t get involved, that foul was right in front of him’ etc etc., as if they expected the officials to start manically waving their arms about or do a back flip every time they seen a foul. 

[paranoid android]

If we are getting VAR, can we also get the Countdown music to accompany it?

[Arch Stanton]

7 minutes ago, paranoid android said:

If we are getting VAR, can we also get the Countdown music to accompany it?

It only lasts 30 seconds, they'll need to play it about 8 times continuously. 

[paranoid android]

11 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

It only lasts 30 seconds, they'll need to play it about 8 times continuously. 

before the ref announces 'goal for rangers'.