VAR in Scottish Football

[Savage Henry]

18 hours ago, Leith Green said:

Yet another bonkers VAR decision - at Celtic Park this time............

It was an absolute shambles.  Never a penalty.  Harks back to the ridiculous handballs that VAR was giving in the early days. The Aberdeen one was much more debatable.  The player was definitely trying to play for a penalty, but there was also definitely contact and a foul.  
 

Yesterday, I noticed Sportscene spent a good couple of minutes on a potential St Mirren penalty.  It looked for all the world like one on the TV angles, but I was right in line with it and the County defender played the ball. VAR would have, presumably, a camera at that angle that wasn’t shown on the telly, and so the referee wasn’t consulted. 
 

That being said, at wee grounds there’s no way of fans knowing when VAR is reviewing something.  So it’s quite possible it was completely missed.    There needs to be a way of communicating that with the fans.  

[kingjoey]

No idea why there is any controversy about the United penalty. The ball is going towards goal, the defender has his arm up and out, the ball hits his arm.  Penalty every time. Intention doesn't enter the equation. 

[wastecoatwilly]

31 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

No idea why there is any controversy about the United penalty. The ball is going towards goal, the defender has his arm up and out, the ball hits his arm.  Penalty every time. Intention doesn't enter the equation. 

The contradiction in the rule makes it very subjective David not as straight forward as you would like M8.

[tarapoa]

No idea why there is any controversy about the United penalty. The ball is going towards goal, the defender has his arm up and out, the ball hits his arm.  Penalty every time. Intention doesn't enter the equation. 

You are 100% correct.

The point is that IFAB need to get that in the bin - get together again (without the malts and cognac this time) and rethink that whole rule.

VAR exacerbates it - but it’s the rule rather than VAR that is a problem with handball these days. It’s wrecking fitba

My solution - indirect free kick unless it’s clearly intentional.

[Leith Green]

52 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

No idea why there is any controversy about the United penalty. The ball is going towards goal, the defender has his arm up and out, the ball hits his arm.  Penalty every time. Intention doesn't enter the equation. 

No, I agree - its actually the handball rule that is bonkers (imv).

Regarding "VAR" in this situation it just took forever to award it........as with every VAR decision it seems.

Someone said to me yesterday that it was "different" to the one we got v St Mirren for handball - it wasnt, the only difference was that the Celtic defender had his back turned and couldnt reasonably be expected to even know the ball was there !

I did mention on the match thread that the guy who does Celtic tv had the IFAB rules out on his phone, and Simon Donnelly said "its a penalty, but its not a penalty" !!

I think, what everyone should be saying is that it is a penalty, but the rule itself is now crazy.

@Savage Henry I dont disagree on "showing the fans" whats going on, but I dont think they have any intention of doing this - they really need to up the audible comms though, esp in those smaller grounds with no video screens.

[bennett]

58 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

No idea why there is any controversy about the United penalty. The ball is going towards goal, the defender has his arm up and out, the ball hits his arm.  Penalty every time. Intention doesn't enter the equation. 

If enough fuss is kicked up then referees/VAR refs will think twice before going against celtic.

[Clown Job]

8 minutes ago, tarapoa said:

You are 100% correct.

The point is that IFAB need to get that in the bin - get together again (without the malts and cognac this time) and rethink that whole rule.

VAR exacerbates it - but it’s the rule rather than VAR that is a problem with handball these days. It’s wrecking fitba

My solution - indirect free kick unless it’s clearly intentional.

Similar with offside 

If they’re keeping VAR they need to give the rule a rethink 

[Savage Henry]

13 minutes ago, Leith Green said:

No, I agree - its actually the handball rule that is bonkers (imv).

Regarding "VAR" in this situation it just took forever to award it........as with every VAR decision it seems.

Someone said to me yesterday that it was "different" to the one we got v St Mirren for handball - it wasnt, the only difference was that the Celtic defender had his back turned and couldnt reasonably be expected to even know the ball was there !

I did mention on the match thread that the guy who does Celtic tv had the IFAB rules out on his phone, and Simon Donnelly said "its a penalty, but its not a penalty" !!

I think, what everyone should be saying is that it is a penalty, but the rule itself is now crazy.

@Savage Henry I dont disagree on "showing the fans" whats going on, but I dont think they have any intention of doing this - they really need to up the audible comms though, esp in those smaller grounds with no video screens.

The St Mirren manager still has a bee in his bonnet about that.  He was haranguing the referee yesterday in the warm up about it - albeit good naturedly.

I think we’re in agreement.  The handball rule is a mess.   They need to get rid of the word intentional, for a start.  Whether that’s in the rules or not, almost no player is ever going to deliberately handle the ball in the penalty area.

 

 

[resk]

10 minutes ago, tarapoa said:

You are 100% correct.

The point is that IFAB need to get that in the bin - get together again (without the malts and cognac this time) and rethink that whole rule.

VAR exacerbates it - but it’s the rule rather than VAR that is a problem with handball these days. It’s wrecking fitba

My solution - indirect free kick unless it’s clearly intentional.

My solution is to reinstate the old law - deliberate handball is a foul and accidental handball isn't a foul.  The referee decides whether it's deliberate or not based on his assessment / balance of probabilities / whether or not the attacking team is Rangers or Celtic / etc.  

It worked fine for 100 years until arsehole fans started shouting "handball!" whenever the ball hit a hand accidentally in the penalty box and idiot pundits on MOTD started reacting to this and demanding a completely unnecessary law change because they're too ignorant to read and understand the fucking laws of the game.  

If your team gets a shot on goal blocked by the ball accidentally hits a defender's hand (eg. the United penalty yesterday) then tough luck, it's the rules.   

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, kingjoey said:

No idea why there is any controversy about the United penalty. The ball is going towards goal, the defender has his arm up and out, the ball hits his arm.  Penalty every time. Intention doesn't enter the equation. 

• deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, for example moving the hand/arm towards the ball

• touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised

• scores in the opponents’ goal:

  • directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental, including by the goalkeeper

  • immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental

 

Highlighted part is why it's not handball for me. His arm is up because he's jumping.

It's one of these where the full-speed version shows you the answer. He just jumps and the ball is fired off him. Not a chance it meets the criteria above for a foul. The booking is insane.

People giving it the 'A qualified referee has looked at it, so you're wrong' patter are going to have to explain to me how at least two Category 1 referees have looked at that decision and made a call that is contrary to the law as on the IFAB website.

Maybe some people are just shite at their jobs. Maybe VAR isn't a paradise of correct decisions.

Edited November 6, 2022 by VincentGuerin

[LIVIFOREVER]

19 hours ago, Frank Grimes said:

Sellick Twitter Da's in full “it’s no’ fair” mode again 

Heart bleeds 

Yeah they were equally upset getting a hand ball pen against us in their prev game, for much the same thing. Luckily their outrage for fair play would've been quelled when they missed the pen.

[paranoid android]

Just when it seemed like celtic had a likeable manager...

[wastecoatwilly]

6 minutes ago, paranoid android said:

Just when it seemed like celtic had a likeable manager...

That's funny the Tarts manager said the same thing against Celtic.

[Bob in Denny]

Simple solution to the handball contoversarys,

no defender shall have arms....

simples

[Derry Alli]

54 minutes ago, tarapoa said:

My solution - indirect free kick unless it’s clearly intentional.

Your 'solution' is worse than the situation no. How exactly are you going to decide whether it was intentional?

[Leith Green]

In any rational world, there is no way that Celtic player gets booked, or a pen given but loads of people (understandably as its Celtic maybe) think its fucking hilarious and have a good giggle at "Celtic Das" on twitter etc.

Thats fine - but its going to impact all our teams at one time or another, and that day might be when you need points to get into the top 6, or avoid relegation.

In truth these "improvements" - e.g. that horrific handball rule, and the way VAR sucks the joy out of the game, slowing the match with little feedback to fans in the stadium - risk putting people off coming to live football especially when you are not shown the same VAR detail you can see on Sky matches, or even get any proper comms about what the f**k is going on while in a stadium.

You might as well spend the price of 2 away day trips and watch it all on IPTV.

Bunch of useless p***ks that run our game - the same kind of people that thought this pish up were probably the same as awarded a World Cup to a despotic middle eastern hellhole during the winter..................

 

[The Master]

2 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

Yesterday, I noticed Sportscene spent a good couple of minutes on a potential St Mirren penalty.  It looked for all the world like one on the TV angles, but I was right in line with it and the County defender played the ball. VAR would have, presumably, a camera at that angle that wasn’t shown on the telly, and so the referee wasn’t consulted.

VAR has exactly the same angles available to the broadcasters. 

[paranoid android]

29 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said:

That's funny the Tarts manager said the same thing against Celtic.

He said Angie Baby wasn't likeable? Wow - didn't hear that!

[johnnydun]

At least VAR got rid of the controversy.

[KingswellsRed]

We may have benefited from it on this occasion but that wasn’t football I watched on Friday. Several minutes sometimes to make decisions, and even the perfectly good goals still being checked when the players are ready kick off again. It has to at the very least be speeded up significantly.