VAR in Scottish Football

[Dons_1988]

Can’t believe there’s folk out there who think Scottish football needs this.

If we have the will to invest some of the prize money into the infrastructure of the game then surely there’s a long list that you could prioritise before this pish. 

[bennett]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

Can’t believe there’s folk out there who think Scottish football needs this.

If we have the will to invest some of the prize money into the infrastructure of the game then surely there’s a long list that you could prioritise before this pish. 

 

Basically boils down to, cos Sevco. 

[Orbix]

There’s now a minimum standard for leagues in Europe to be considered professional. Not reaching it out of some kind of weird push for shite football purism will just hold back the league entirely. 

[Leith Green]

6 minutes ago, Orbix said:

There’s now a minimum standard for leagues in Europe to be considered professional. Not reaching it out of some kind of weird push for shite football purism will just hold back the league entirely. 

Enlighten us, what is the minimum standard?

And if we are not reaching it, how come we have clubs competing in European competition?

[AJF]

Are Scottish referees allowed to officiate in European matches where VAR is in use?

[Loonytoons]

There’s now a minimum standard for leagues in Europe to be considered professional. Not reaching it out of some kind of weird push for shite football purism will just hold back the league entirely. 

Reaching it with shite American football-style stop-start intervals with decision still open to interpretation will be a massive leap forward though.

[Leith Green]

2 minutes ago, AJF said:

Are Scottish referees allowed to officiate in European matches where VAR is in use?

I don't believe so. Good news for clubs in Europe that they don't have to endure the Madden's and Collums of our world.......

[The Master]

1 hour ago, Orbix said:

 I think every ground has got LED hoardings now, you can stick a fancy scrolling ‘Check: Penalty’ on that with little outlay.

No, most grounds only have them temporarily when on live TV. 

Apart from the obvious two, I think only Pittodrie and Tynecastle have them permanently installed. 

[craigkillie]

There’s now a minimum standard for leagues in Europe to be considered professional. Not reaching it out of some kind of weird push for shite football purism will just hold back the league entirely. 

What is this "standard" and what are the consequences for not meeting it?

[Orbix]

56 minutes ago, Leith Green said:

Enlighten us, what is the minimum standard?

And if we are not reaching it, how come we have clubs competing in European competition?

VAR, clearly? Every UEFA league with any level of professionalism has VAR. Scotland is currently 9th in the standings. The next country to not have an implementation of VAR is Norway in 21st (coming in 2023), and after that Romania at 25th (plans to implement this season and next). After that you’re getting into Azerbaijani closed shop 8 team round robin games and the Gibraltan National League (though with one stadium I guess costs might make it worthwhile). 
 

it’s like arguing against goal line technology or the implementation of offside.

 

 

 

[DukDukGoose]

33 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

What is this "standard" and what are the consequences for not meeting it?

He'll be up to his knees in your blood.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

They’re absolutely desperate for it after dropping points to Thommy Courts lads.

[Leith Green]

29 minutes ago, Orbix said:

VAR, clearly? Every UEFA league with any level of professionalism has VAR. Scotland is currently 9th in the standings. The next country to not have an implementation of VAR is Norway in 21st (coming in 2023), and after that Romania at 25th (plans to implement this season and next). After that you’re getting into Azerbaijani closed shop 8 team round robin games and the Gibraltan National League (though with one stadium I guess costs might make it worthwhile). 
 

it’s like arguing against goal line technology or the implementation of offside.

 

 

 

I'm really confused now.

On one hand you state that "every league with any level of professionalism has VAR", but in the next breath you tell us that there are only 8 countries ahead of us in the rankings..........and many behind us with VAR.

This is like debating with a raspberry jelly, ffs.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Leith Green

[Orbix]

1 hour ago, Leith Green said:

I'm really confused now.

On one hand you state that "every league with any level of professionalism has VAR", but in the next breath you tell us that there are only 8 countries ahead of us in the rankings..........and many behind us with VAR.

This is like debating with a raspberry jelly, ffs.

I’m not surprised but I’ll shorten some of the longer words. 

If every association around the Scottish league in UEFA’s top ten, twenty, or thirty (those leagues that get meaningful entry to European competitions) implement VAR, then across Europe VAR is a de facto standard in men’s top flight football.

If the major leagues in CONCACAF, Conmebol, OFC and AFCON have also implemented VAR, then it’s a standard for top flight men’s football worldwide. They all have. From Peru to Australia. The US to Morocco. 

You could argue that “professionalism” is too broad a statement, and that there are leagues with 100% full time teams, or a pyramid structure that don’t have VAR. It’s a vanishingly small number though. Given the current position and strength of the domestic game, and even accepting a position between 8th-14th in the rankings if you assume recent over-performance, Scotland not having VAR or plans to implement it currently makes the league an outlier amongst its peers. There is an expected standard for professional top flight football leagues that we will not be meeting.

 

[Leith Green]

6 hours ago, Orbix said:

I’m not surprised but I’ll shorten some of the longer words. 

If every association around the Scottish league in UEFA’s top ten, twenty, or thirty (those leagues that get meaningful entry to European competitions) implement VAR, then across Europe VAR is a de facto standard in men’s top flight football.

If the major leagues in CONCACAF, Conmebol, OFC and AFCON have also implemented VAR, then it’s a standard for top flight men’s football worldwide. They all have. From Peru to Australia. The US to Morocco. 

You could argue that “professionalism” is too broad a statement, and that there are leagues with 100% full time teams, or a pyramid structure that don’t have VAR. It’s a vanishingly small number though. Given the current position and strength of the domestic game, and even accepting a position between 8th-14th in the rankings if you assume recent over-performance, Scotland not having VAR or plans to implement it currently makes the league an outlier amongst its peers. There is an expected standard for professional top flight football leagues that we will not be meeting.

 

In summary then:

A lot of leagues use VAR.

Its implementation varies - different systems exist within Europe and even within countries(e.g. England).

No de facto standard for VAR actually exists within UEFA.

Hence there is no standard that the SFA or SPFL are not presently meeting.

[Empty It]

It's funny how every week the horde say f**k all when they get their "things even themselves out" penalties and as soon as they don't win its mass hysteria clambering over each other to preach for VAR.

It can piss off as far as I'm concerned as it'll be the same weegies making the same shit decisions only hiding in a cupboard somewhere instead.

[Dons_1988]

I always think that football sits on a sliding scale of somewhere between a business and a sport. It is a business, there’s nothing you can do about that as long as people all over the world are willing to pay to watch it. 

However, I always think you have to ensure the scale doesn’t tip too far towards business (it already has but that’s for another day) and VAR for me absolutely furthers football as a business. I think the people that really want it are the people wanting to minimise risk that factors out with your control can determine games of football. 

The extreme example of this is the shan super league recently which is basically because the elite clubs hate the idea that they could miss out the on the champions league because another club domestically has the temerity to be better than them. They bring commercial value so how dare they not be in it? 

VAR is similar in that clubs, managers, even referees want some sort of protection that they won’t miss out on earnings because of a howler of a mistake that decides a cup tie or a league title or whatever. 

And whilst yes you can argue that the ‘sport’ side benefits from increased accuracy in decision making, the sport side for fans is considerably worse. So once again the paying customer in this business is shafted to serve the needs of others. 

Tl;dr - get it in the fucking bin. 

[Valentino Bolognese]

21 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

I always think that football sits on a sliding scale of somewhere between a business and a sport. It is a business, there’s nothing you can do about that as long as people all over the world are willing to pay to watch it. 

However, I always think you have to ensure the scale doesn’t tip too far towards business (it already has but that’s for another day) and VAR for me absolutely furthers football as a business. I think the people that really want it are the people wanting to minimise risk that factors out with your control can determine games of football. 

The extreme example of this is the shan super league recently which is basically because the elite clubs hate the idea that they could miss out the on the champions league because another club domestically has the temerity to be better than them. They bring commercial value so how dare they not be in it? 

VAR is similar in that clubs, managers, even referees want some sort of protection that they won’t miss out on earnings because of a howler of a mistake that decides a cup tie or a league title or whatever. 

And whilst yes you can argue that the ‘sport’ side benefits from increased accuracy in decision making, the sport side for fans is considerably worse. So once again the paying customer in this business is shafted to serve the needs of others. 

Tl;dr - get it in the fucking bin. 

I'm not pro-VAR, but don't think that this particular argument that it favours elite teams hangs together. Taken at face value, a more even playing field would (in Scotland at least) theoretically redress the perceived imbalance towards bigger clubs. Let's be charitable and say that's just the well-researched larger crowd effect, which VAR should eliminate. I guess my argument is that if the prosecution's case was based purely on business, the larger clubs would prefer to retain the status quo as it favours them with their larger, ahem, 'influence'. 

Saying all that I'd be quite happy for VAR to be retrospectively used for all St Johnstone games this year, the results corrected, and then the system immediately scrapped and never spoken of again.

[Dons_1988]

9 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

I'm not pro-VAR, but don't think that this particular argument that it favours elite teams hangs together. Taken at face value, a more even playing field would (in Scotland at least) theoretically redress the perceived imbalance towards bigger clubs. Let's be charitable and say that's just the well-researched larger crowd effect, which VAR should eliminate. I guess my argument is that if the prosecution's case was based purely on business, the larger clubs would prefer to retain the status quo as it favours them with their larger, ahem, 'influence'. 

Saying all that I'd be quite happy for VAR to be retrospectively used for all St Johnstone games this year, the results corrected, and then the system immediately scrapped and never spoken of again.

I wasn’t even trying to really frame it as the big clubs feel persecuted in decision making hence they want it. 

My point is more that businesses (st Johnstone as much as Celtic) don’t like outcomes being determined by random factors such as human error in refereeing. It can come with rewards obviously but ultimately anything variable like that they’d prefer to minimise. The super league example was just an extreme version of that, where elite clubs can’t accept the fact that their prize money and income is determined by unfair factors such as, you know, winning and losing football games. 

[Les Cabbage]

If the old firm want VAR so much why don’t they pay for it.

The thing that annoys me most about this is that no one at all is listening to supporters, we don’t want it and the clubs don’t seem to care.