VAR in Scottish Football

[Clown Job]

1 minute ago, williemillersmoustache said:

I kind of think there should be daylight between attacker and defender in order to be off. I hate that a nose or half a pinkie is enough to chop off a goal. 

Without making it into basketball, more goals or giving the attacker the advantage is surely the way to go. 

Yeah this 

I don’t think the offside rules was ever brought in with the intention to penalise attackers for being a toe behind the last defender 

 

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

It's still half a metre

[Dons_1988]

There’s a special place in hell for the ‘offside is offside’, technology obsessed, probably spend 7 hours a week on their fantasy football team losers. 

[craigkillie]

Why? If they are offside they are offside, if they are onside they are onside. If you start putting in rules to mitigate someone onside being offside, or someone offside being onside, then what is the point of VAR in the first place, the ref could make that judgement on the spot.

How is this any different to deciding if a player is interfering with play under the current rule? A player can be in an offside position without it being an offence.

[williemillersmoustache]

3 minutes ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

It's still half a metre

 

[VincentGuerin]

3 hours ago, Ric said:

Got to say I don't agree with the "well computers can tell if someone is offside or not to the centimetre, that sort of absoluteness is not football". You are either onside or offside, it's either over the line or not over the line, everything is binary. Complaining that we can now determine these things more accurately is not a negative towards VAR.

My issue with VAR is twofold, one is that it won't change the culture of suspicion and secrecy, with the second being that it's expensive and being implemented mid way through a season.

This is a complete misunderstanding of the issue. Nobody is saying 'I don't want correct decisions'.

People are saying that in examples where the decisions are borderline, it is not worth disrupting the game to correct them.

Suspicion, secrecy, cost, all these things are fine. But I think most people's issue with it is that we're fundamentally changing the flow of the game and the nature of reactions to things happening in front of us just to satisfy the urge to know whether someone's toe really was an inch in front of someone else's toe.

It's an utterly trivial thing to bother checking and it ruins the experience of watching a game.

If you really care that much about accuracy, then good luck to you. But football is not cricket or rugby or tennis. I think you're looking for an utterly joyless, completely scientific version of football. To be honest, that sounds fucking shite.

[Ric]

22 minutes ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

The technology used for VAR is not good enough to be dealing in tiny margins.  The margin for error at the frame rates used is too big

That answers the other posters question of just how accurate they are. Frame rate seems an obvious limiter, although considering technology there is absolutely no reason why that should be the case.

6 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

How is this any different to deciding if a player is interfering with play under the current rule? A player can be in an offside position without it being an offence.

I was answering in the context of the offside being the determining factor, and the reason VAR is being consulted, not it being incidental. Not that irrespective of the situation anyone offside is automatically 'offending'.

 

[Swello]

17 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

How is this any different to deciding if a player is interfering with play under the current rule? A player can be in an offside position without it being an offence.

There were also various formulations over the years that recognised that offside was never really meant to be an absolutist rule (eg, "attacker gets benefit of the doubt")

[VincentGuerin]

3 minutes ago, Swello said:

There were also various formulations over the years that recognised that offside was never really meant to be an absolutist rule (eg, "attacker gets benefit of the doubt")

This is a really important thing. VAR is a shift in how the game operates. This idea that it matters whether someone was minutely offside is a major change in the game. It never mattered before, and officials were happy to leave shades of grey.

Who actually wants a game run like this? It's only a fucking game FFS.

[Ric]

8 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

Nobody is saying 'I don't want correct decisions'.

People are saying that in examples where the decisions are borderline, it is not worth disrupting the game to correct them.

If I was to take that literally, then yes, that is an argument against correct decisions, as you seem happy to allow marginal ones go by without being pulled up.

Now, in reality, I do get where you are coming from, the stop and start would interrupt the flow of the game, and I can appreciate that could be the case. The issue is you can't be a little bit pregnant, it should be all or nothing, so if the 4th official (or whoever else is monitoring the VAR) thinks it should be looked at, it should be looked at even if that means a stoppage. Of course that leads onto "who is the 4th official and what is their agenda", because Scottish football is like that (sadly), but it doesn't undermine the fact that if a call is seen to be wrong it should be looked at.

Ultimately I just don't want smaller clubs disadvantaged here, either through cost or implementation, and considering the number of questionable decisions that some referees seem to make on a regular basis I don't think VAR is a bad thing in general. I do take your points though, I'm not suggesting it's a silver bullet. Far from it.

 

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Ric

[VincentGuerin]

3 minutes ago, Ric said:

it should be all or nothing

 

 

Why?

[Ric]

1 minute ago, VincentGuerin said:

Why?

I'm not saying every single foul or offence should be checked with VAR, but if you allow referees (or the 4th official) to arbitrarily select what is and isn't reviewed then you have the same situation as you do now, referees making decisions that will not be consistent.

As I said, it's not that I don't get where you are coming from with the interruptions, but I'd much rather have that delay than a ref whistle for a goal after a blatant offside which, at this moment, the referee has absolutely no obligation to correct.

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

The offside rule originated to stop players hanging about near the goal and ruining the game, at a time when there were no linesmen.

That it's evolved into something where we're arguing over miniscule margins managed by technology is not really in the spirit of the game.   We all moan when a guy a foot offside scores against us, but really it should have to be something blatantly massively  wrong to get it overturned.

[VincentGuerin]

3 minutes ago, Ric said:

I'm not saying every single foul or offence should be checked with VAR, but if you allow referees (or the 4th official) to arbitrarily select what is and isn't reviewed then you have the same situation as you do now, referees making decisions that will not be consistent.

As I said, it's not that I don't get where you are coming from with the interruptions, but I'd much rather have that delay than a ref whistle for a goal after a blatant offside which, at this moment, the referee has absolutely no obligation to correct.

So why do you place such importance on offside then?

Decisions will never be consistent. That's life.

What do you think the point of offside is?

[Swello]

Offside is a necessary thing but it's a total joy-sucker - the idea that you'd deliberately suck even more joy out of the game by leaning on the strictest possible interpretation is a bizarre thing and it feels like an unintended consequence of improving technology rather than a well thought through decision.

[Ric]

7 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

So why do you place such importance on offside then?

I place no more importance on that than anything else, the reason my post covered it is because it was in response to someone else's post discussing offside. It's called context, you should try it!

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Ric

[The Master]

1 hour ago, AJF said:

I'd assume it would be dependant on how many frames per second the recording cameras/monitors are able to display. The higher the frames per second then the more accurate they'll be. Not sure what the actual margins are defined as though.

Cameras are standard broadcast cameras at 50fps. 

The EPL were apparently looking into faster cameras to make offside more accurate. 

[Jacksgranda]

3 hours ago, Mr. Brightside said:

With decisions like that I can imagine them bringing in a new rule specifically stating that a player needs to be deemed to have gained an advantage from being in an offside position.

Surely scoring a goal is an advantage?

[HibsFan]

4 hours ago, Merkland Red said:

I'm against it but from watching Sportscene you can see why we're getting it.

So much inconsistency in decisions from game to game.

Bridge for sale!

[craigkillie]

I'm not saying every single foul or offence should be checked with VAR, but if you allow referees (or the 4th official) to arbitrarily select what is and isn't reviewed then you have the same situation as you do now, referees making decisions that will not be consistent.
As I said, it's not that I don't get where you are coming from with the interruptions, but I'd much rather have that delay than a ref whistle for a goal after a blatant offside which, at this moment, the referee has absolutely no obligation to correct.

Based on your posts, I genuinely don't think you understand anything about how VAR (or a referee) operates.

The laws of the game make it very clear that the referee is the sole arbiter of the game. They are in charge of every single decision and outcome. When you have them, the two on-field assistant referees (and 4th official) are there to do exactly what is in their name, which is to assist the ref. The ref doesn't have to take their advice. If they disagree on any decision, be it offside, a throw-in, a free-kick, then the ref's opinion is more important.

The VAR (Video Assistant Referee) follows the same principle. They are still assistants, the only difference is that they are now operating remotely and have video replays available to them. This obviously means they're more likely to get decisions right, but there are plenty of subjective ones out there. This process also takes a long time and causes a delay to the game, so the laws of game have outlined a number of game critical decisions where VAR can intervene - this basically amounts to red cards, penalties and goals. In those cases, VAR will consult the replays and give advice to the referee. However, the referee doesn't have to take this advice - they can still choose to stick with their original decision if they want, and they also have the option of going to the screen to see it for themselves.

Therefore, VAR or no VAR, a referee is always going to be able to stick with their original decision if they want. After all, who is going to stop them?