VAR in Scottish Football

[The Master]

19 hours ago, stressball said:

I do feel we should have had a penalty, but it is what it is. The second Hearts penalty should never have gone to VAR as it was beyond obvious it was a penalty.

The referee gave the second Hearts penalty.

All decisions to award a penalty will be checked by VAR to make sure there weren't any issues in the build-up (much the same as with goals). 

[tarapoa]

The current handball rule is a joke, dreamt up by IFAB delegates who had one brandy too many.

There's an easy way of simpifying it.  If it's deliberate - direct free kick/penalty.  If not, ignore it.

A compromise would be an indirect free kick if it's not deemed deliberate.

Surely only ~5% of handball offences are deliberate.

Not a VAR issue as such - but VAR just seems to exacerbate the nonsense, and fans are now trained to scream handball at anything. It is so outwith the spirit of the rules to penalise this so harshly, particularly when in the box and it leads to a game-changing decision such as a penalty.

[VincentGuerin]

58 minutes ago, tarapoa said:

The current handball rule is a joke, dreamt up by IFAB delegates who had one brandy too many.

There's an easy way of simpifying it.  If it's deliberate - direct free kick/penalty.  If not, ignore it.

A compromise would be an indirect free kick if it's not deemed deliberate.

Surely only ~5% of handball offences are deliberate.

Not a VAR issue as such - but VAR just seems to exacerbate the nonsense, and fans are now trained to scream handball at anything. It is so outwith the spirit of the rules to penalise this so harshly, particularly when in the box and it leads to a game-changing decision such as a penalty.

Fans are trained to scream for handball, and players are trained to do what we saw on Saturday and clip the ball up towards arm-height and hope for a decision.

I agree completely that non-deliberate handball should be ignored. But in general I think there are too many penalties given. Indirect free-kicks should be used more. Most penalties are well over the score for the offence commited.

[The_Judge]

I agree with both of you   A guy being accidentally caught as he races the ball out of the box towards the corner flag (or even playing for contact) should NOT be rewarded with a penalty kick imo.

[Dirty Sanchez]

I always laugh when commentators srceam,"Was it deliberate?", or suchlike, after a handball.

Of course it fkn wasn't. Who makes a conscious decision to handle in the box? The full back is waiting on cross a coming in and he's thinking. "I'm going to try and handle this".

[VincentGuerin]

21 minutes ago, Dirty Sanchez said:

I always laugh when commentators srceam,"Was it deliberate?", or suchlike, after a handball.

Of course it fkn wasn't. Who makes a conscious decision to handle in the box? The full back is waiting on cross a coming in and he's thinking. "I'm going to try and handle this".

It happens sometimes. The obvious example is stopping a clear goal. But you do sometimes see players just having a momentary brain-freeze and obviously handling the ball.

A couple of Hearts-related ones that stuck with me are Mark De Vries and Jordan McGhee in games against Rangers and Aberdeen respectively giving away penalties by punching the ball completely inexplicably. McGhee's cost us the game at the death. Both incidents saw the players involved immediately show horror at what they'd just done. I can only put it down to panic.

It's rare, but it happens. That should be the only time it's penalised imo.

Edited October 25, 2022 by VincentGuerin

[AJF]

I think the argument around deliberate handball has to be more than just a case of the above example and that's why you then have debates around unnatural arm positions.

Players attempting to block a ball may not make a deliberate movement towards the ball when it's in flight to block it, but if they rush at an attacked with arms spread out or held above their head before the ball is struck and it subsequently hits their arm, then by it's nature they have deliberately made their body bigger in an attempt to block the balls path even if they don't make a movement towards the ball after it is struck or in flight.

Of course though, this is very subjective because I often feel players attempting to block will always have a natural arm swing due to their momentum and I think these types of offences are penalised too often.

[ropy]

8 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

It happens sometimes. The obvious example is stopping a clear goal. But you do sometimes see players just having a momentary brain-freeze and obviously handling the ball.

A couple of Hearts-related ones that stuck with me are Mark De Vries and Jordan McGhee in games against Rangers and Aberdeen respectively giving away penalties by punching the ball completely inexplicably. McGhee's cost us the game in the last minute. Both incidents saw the players involved immediately show horror at what they'd just done. I can only put it down to panic.

It's rare, but it happens. That should be the only time it's penalised imo.

You then get into the semantics of the language, were these deliberate? Did they mean to do it? Did they consciously decide to punch the ball?  Was it a subconscious (or unconscious) act?

[LiviLion]

32 minutes ago, Dirty Sanchez said:

Who makes a conscious decision to handle in the box?

Jonah Ayunga IMO.

 

Another favourite (not in the box of course):

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by LiviLion

[VincentGuerin]

11 minutes ago, AJF said:

Of course though, this is very subjective because I often feel players attempting to block will always have a natural arm swing due to their momentum and I think these types of offences are penalised too often.

The problem is the over-use of slow-motion to analyse thse things as well.

Any slow-mo of an incident where someone is running or turning makes it look like they've obviously deliberately moved their arm towards the ball in order to handle it.

I think the Smith one at the weekend is an example of this. Slowed down it looks like he's made a great save, but at full speed it looks very different.

[Dirty Sanchez]

21 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

It happens sometimes. The obvious example is stopping a clear goal. But you do sometimes see players just having a momentary brain-freeze and obviously handling the ball.

A couple of Hearts-related ones that stuck with me are Mark De Vries and Jordan McGhee in games against Rangers and Aberdeen respectively giving away penalties by punching the ball completely inexplicably. McGhee's cost us the game at the death. Both incidents saw the players involved immediately show horror at what they'd just done. I can only put it down to panic.

It's rare, but it happens. That should be the only time it's penalised imo.

Yes, I thought that went without saying, to be fair. Aside from instances of actual goalkeeping style saves, like the one for which we rightly had Jonah Ayunga sent off a couple of weeks back, I was going to add in that I've seen actual deliberate handball on very few occasions, in decades of going to games. I remember Martin Baker inexplicably catching a cross in a cup tie at Dundee years ago, and I think it was Richard Gough who caught a throug ball going over his head, but they are few and far between compared to the number of handballs penalised.

[Dirty Sanchez]

19 minutes ago, LiviLion said:

Jonah Ayunga IMO.

 

 

 

 

That could be the benchmark. It's deliberate handball when commentator doesn't need to ask if it was deliberate.

[ArabFC]

31 minutes ago, LiviLion said:

Another favourite (not in the box of course):

 

One of the few occasions in life where my jaw just dropped. 

Gunning was one crazy boy! 

[craigkillie]

3 hours ago, tarapoa said:

The current handball rule is a joke, dreamt up by IFAB delegates who had one brandy too many.

There's an easy way of simpifying it.  If it's deliberate - direct free kick/penalty.  If not, ignore it.

This is what the law was for a very long time, but then you got dweebs and losers constantly moaning about having to specifically define what deliberate meant, and complaining if any ball hit a hand in the box, which is why you now have an incredibly convoluted description.

More or less every negative change to the laws of the game (including VAR) in recent years can be traced directly back to people being unable to accept that referees are human beings who make judgement-based decisions on things that aren't always black and white.

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

Slight tangent but they should be reviewing these handballs at live speed only as well. 

Slowing it down and then pundits claiming he moved his hand towards the so it was deliberate is right up there of the shite of shite from pundits. 

[craigkillie]

They can use slow motion to check if it actually hit a hand, but I agree they shouldn't be using it to determine intent.

[AngusTheBull]

5 hours ago, Dirty Sanchez said:

I always laugh when commentators srceam,"Was it deliberate?", or suchlike, after a handball.

Of course it fkn wasn't. Who makes a conscious decision to handle in the box? The full back is waiting on cross a coming in and he's thinking. "I'm going to try and handle this".

Ex-Motherwell CB Cedric Kipre had an absolute cracker of a deliberate handball in the box this weekend.

Maradonaesque.

 

[Busta Nut]

I would only like to say on that (non) handball by Smith v Celtic.

If that was a Motherwell defender, I'd have no issue with that being a handball.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Busta Nut

[flyingscot]

16 hours ago, SJFCtheTeamForMe said:

Slight tangent but they should be reviewing these handballs at live speed only as well. 

Slowing it down and then pundits claiming he moved his hand towards the so it was deliberate is right up there of the shite of shite from pundits. 

15 hours ago, craigkillie said:

They can use slow motion to check if it actually hit a hand, but I agree they shouldn't be using it to determine intent.

One of my biggest bugbears with video refs in rugby is this. The use of slow motion to make things look worse when at full speed it's nothing. The more experienced refs are aware of it and now often ask "can I see it in real time?".

Slow motion and freeze frames have their place to determine where contact points if a tackle is high or if it hit arms or chest, but looking at movement on them can be deceiving. 

[Feltcrayfish]

I am a journalism student at Glasgow Clyde college, and I need to create some UGC for an assessment. I would be very grateful if you fine P&B posters did my survey on VAR in Scottish football.

Thank you very much

https://take.supersurvey.com/poll4544234x0f77476F-142