Please Let German Video Referee Trial Lead To Improved Officiating
Feb 26th, 2017 by 'holic
I have a very old drum here that I simply have to bang again having watched the EFL Cup Final being decided by officiating errors rather than the excellent football that was played. Southampton will long feel hard done by, and football supporters everywhere will understand their feelings of disappointment tonight. It will live with them a long time.
Actually Matt Le Tissier was quite right when he said the the match could have followed a very different path had the Saints opening ‘goal’ been allowed, as indeed it should. It might also have seen United win a less emotional contest from behind. Yet the feeling that Southampton were robbed also lingers in the air, and for how much longer can we not take some sort of action to improve the standard of officiating?
Few could argue that the officials are under more scrutiny than ever and have a very tough job to do with many split-second decisions to make over the course of every game. The majority they still get right, but there is a feeling that the majority is shrinking as ever more high-profile mistakes are seen, and inconsistencies are evident.
The same old arguments for and against technological assistance raged on social media during and in the wake of the match. Football however has to follow the lead of cricket and rugby in helping the officials to get more decisions right. Slowly but surely it is being dragged kicking and screaming to that inevitable conclusion. We have made a start with goal line technology which has been a welcome introduction.
Next season the German Bundesliga will become the first major league competition approved to use video assistant referees. The VAR experiment is still in an experimental phase under the supervision of the law-making International Football Association Board and it will be interesting to see exactly how it will work and what it will cover. Nobody wants repeated lengthy delays to disrupt the flow of the game, but rugby has somehow got that right, and wiring up the referees would also help greater understanding of the job facing the man in the middle.
If the VAR experiment throws up valid reasons for a wider introduction to be halted then at least we can say the game tried to help raise standards and get back to the drawing board. I can’t help but feel though that done correctly this will be a justification for a revolutionary change to the game. It has to be something that is used only on matters of fact, and then there is the question of whether or not clubs will be allowed a number of ‘challenges’ as in cricket.
I’m not sure about the latter. It could be used by clubs to waste time, and this system is supposed to be about helping the officials, not making their life potentially harder. Rugby seems to have got things pretty much right, and the ability to listen in to the discussion between referee and video referee is informative too.
I know there are people out there dead against any change, but the game is becoming too big for officials, nowhere near as quick as those they are meant to be controlling, from having every modern assistance available to get more decisions right.
Rant over, for now. I have a feeling it will resurface again very soon.
55 Responses to “Please Let German Video Referee Trial Lead To Improved Officiating”
Manchester united, cheating bastards. Just had to give the vile one and his bunch of mercenaries the game to the detriment of a true team in every sense of the word.
Disgusting
2nd
I only saw bits of the game and not the early disallowed goal but it seemed to me United were largely outplayed. It seemed a very lucky victory. I think the impact of Ibrahimovic has been massive and the sort of factor that decides matches you often don’t deserve to win.
I would be very much in favour of the referee using TMO where he felt it would help and each team having one appeal per half which is not removed if the appeal is upheld. The clock could be stopped accordingly.
Like goal- line technology it could transform the game.
The Dutch FA have done a dummy run of video referees. The IAFB wouldn’t sanction the video referees changing decisions during actually games. But two video referees reffed the games live and went over the crucial decisions with the refs after the game. The key finding seems to have been that there were three of four times games where refs made the wrong decisions usually because they didn’t have a clear sight of the incident.
https://youtu.be/n25ftuXIHB0
It does strike me that video technology could be used for off-side without affecting the game’s flow. TV broadcasts can show replays almost instantaneously these days so I assume video refs could review controversial calls just as quickly.
I’d also not have the teams allowed to challenge calls, as in cricket. I fear it would get out of hand very quickly. The reffing crew would still be the arbiter.
The other way to get more correct off-side calls would be to have an off-side rule that was clear cut and not as half-arsed as the current one.
The game is too quick and the players too clever for the Referee in this day and age,and how often have we seen a linesman get the offside call wrong on replay.
Anything that helps the officials,i am all for.
But the Ref has to be the sole arbiter.
Mike him up like in Rugby,and give him the option of checking with the Video replay on offside and penalty decisions.
It doesn’t seem to affect the flow of the game in rugby,and quite often you find the ref was right in his initial decision.
It would give the Officials more confidence to know they have a back up option if they are not sure.
It is a thankless task being a Ref,when you have 22 players all intent on trying to con you right left and centre to gain an advantage.
It might actually improve the game,if players know that instead of falling down in the penalty area like a dying swan at the merest touch,and only having to con the Ref,they would now be subject to video review and be called out for the cheats they are,and get a yellow card for it as well.
I’m 100% for it Holic. Countryman junior is 100% against. The topic of many a long motorway journey.
That wasn’t a decision caused by players being too quick, it was caused by a lino being shit.
Get efficient linos, like Sian Massey-Ellis who is easily the best, and you have no problems.
But on the whole, what Ned says at 6.
Offside is offside, end of problems.
Fully agree Holic. From what I’ve read the consulting of the VAR will be at the decision of the Referee and will mainly be used for the “easier” incidents like On/Offside, In/Out of the box, Diving and certain handball allegations. It will still be the Referee deciding on everything happening on the pitch but a tool like this would at least help him reduce/avoid the blatant incidents. There will still be things a VAR can’t help either like wasting time in all its variations but we’d be doing more for justice than we’re doing today with the introduction of the VAR. Also curious to see all those players known for diving go on a pitch next year knowing they could be caught now. Exciting experiment certainly.
NHL is 100 times faster than football and it has video replays on controversial goals. Do why can’t football.
Great point Mike. Who decides what to review though?
I aint no expert but Saints goal was scored by a player who was not os.There have been too many blunders by mo.
I wont be surprised the aim is to help the so win. You never know.
Its about time the refs chief punished such erring officials . An immediate suspension and deduction of match fees would suffice to deter.These guys could be helping teams to win.
Had the goal stood,the Swede aint going to be so arrogant.
The current chief of referees Pat Riley was the guy who shafted us in 2004-05 against Man Utd and brought our 49 game unbeaten run to an end. First need to get rid of him before there is any possibility of fair refereeing in the league.
Regarding the offside goal for Sain ts,there was another incident in the Chelsea/ Swansea game. The ball struck a Blues player on the hand in the box.The ref elected not to give a penalty.
Swans could have taken taken the lead if it were given and for all you know Chelsea could have lost.
That’s why its imperative for the football authorities to clamp down on blundering officials.Before doing so,ask for areport and why the spot kick was not given.
If its a blatant error,God forgive the ref but not the Swans.
Deduction of match fees for making mistakes would deter most refs from becoming refs, gunner.
Perhaps we should also fine players who miss tackles, keepers who fail to stop shots and strikers who miss the target. And managers whose teams lose. And how about fining supporters of teams that get relegated?
I agree on this, the situation seems
to be getting steadily worse and it
is time to try something.
The problem with leaving it up to
the ref to call for a replay is that
the players will just badger him
constantly after any close decision.
Better for the ref if it’s taken out
of his hands – i.e. automatic
review after a goal /
disallowed goal / penalty given
decision.
Then, the ref can just shrug when
the players complain and get on
with the game.
The ref stays in charge of the
disciplinary side, reds, yellows
etc and keeps control.
Obviously the weakness in this
is situations like penalties not
given but i think the ref would
be more likely to give the
attacking team the benefit of
the doubt if he knows there
will be a review and personally
I’m fine with that.
Anyway, I’d try that for 2
seasons and then review to
see whether it really needs to
have the parameters widened
or coach challenges allowed.
It’s the thin edge of the wedge. Once technology gets in there will be calls for everything to be monitored.
Take penalties for example. We’ll have Hawk Eye technology to show the exact position contact is made inside or outside the area. Slo-mo cameras to check for players stepping into the penalty area before the ball is kicked and keepers moving before they should.
Feet will be monitored at throw-ins, goal-line technology will be expanded to the sidelines to check that all of the ball crosses all of the sideline, players will have personalied chips inserted to be 100 per cent certain who did touch the ball last before going out of play … etc etc etc.
Just pay money that will attract official with sharper eyes and minds.
Many congrats to Arseblog.
15 years young today.
Along with Holic,the best internet blog on all things Arsenal by a Country mile.
Long may they both continue.
let there be technology in any way possible as long as the flow of the game is not ebbed. A momentary stop is acceptable as even during the game, the odd injury does stop the game.
Saints were the better side but games and trophies are not won like that. Like it or not, Zlatan has adapted and won things for them on his own as most others were poor even yesterday.
Andriers Jonker has moved to Wolfsburg and we are now supposedly interested in the barca academy guy to replace him. This obsession to be like barca is not helping one bit. Frankly it does not matter who replaces as long the one who does, focuses on fitness than just technical aspects.
Lastly, as in the daily rhetoric of the online news, alexis sanchez is leaving us end of the season.
All for technology!
Till then won’t shut up when a wrong call is being made. Too many seems to be against us although we do get the odd one.
Can’t recall how many number of crucial games that we lost because the refs favoured ole purple nose last time.
And where did that phrase ‘Fergie Time’ come from… !
😀
No brainer. Use the rugby template. Good stuff , Holic. Nice builds, Clive.
I may be jumping the gun but, Liverpool are quite shite.
Like I said, quite shite.
I’m delighted that Liverpool are shite as they’ve been struggling of late apart from the Totts game. But the Leicester performance is very reminiscent of Chelsea’s after the loathsome one was sacked last year. It makes you think that players are choosing when they play and who they will play for notwithstanding they earn in a week what the fans earn in a year.
I’m very sad for Ranieri. So he lost the dressing room nine months after he took those players to the highest high they will experience in their football lives. In some respects modern football stinks
Nice post H. As you know, I’m one of the very few that seems to have sympathy with the officials. There are many who use the officials as a scapegoat to try and mask their own failings, or the failings of their club.
Clive once again hits the nail squarely on the head. Every games starts with 2 grown men who are all prepared to cheat if they can. Then there are the so called experts who will attempt to entertain the masses at half time using all the technology available to eventually tell you that that a player was 3 inches offside.
It really simple for me. I think it’s wrong to constantly criticise officials when the powers that be seem totally uninterested in helping them out. We either give the officials all the help we can or simply shut up and just accept their decisions. They are all human and all capable of making mistakes, as we all are.
I would love to see a 4th official that can review decisions. I also agree with Clive in that if all those dying swans were captured there and then that I think the problem would be reduced dramatically within weeks.
On another matter can I also say how totally nuts the sacking of Ranieri was. The best analogy of the situation I have seen was this. It’s like telling a doctor who had found a cure for cancer that he had lost his job because he hadn’t found a cure for aids.
I read somewhere tonight that Ranieri was given a £3 million pay off. The same article said that he had given half to the Leicester City charity foundation. If this is true then what a tremendous showing of class. Perhaps there is still a bit of honour left in the game after all?
TTG. It seems Ranieri lost the dressing room earlier than you say. Apparently the players don’t like opera and when Ranieri brought in Bocelli for the victory celebration it was curtains for the manager. 😉
Tonight’s non-performance by Liverpool is not the best news for the Arsenal, of course, as we are their next opponents. They are sure to come out smoking at home.
What can be done about the enormity of player power today? It really is strange that conglomerates which major football clubs have become are totally at the mercy of a bunch of mercenaries.
It boggles the mind
It works both ways. On a good day, no team wants to play the Arsenal even when we are not at our best.
The best Liverpool will get from that game is a draw.
Klopp’s team were naive in the extreme tonight and they looked very leggy. He’s an exciting manager but I hope we have devised a way to play against them. A lot of our players will have had three weeks off and we should be fairly fresh but to win at Anfield you have to match them physically and then exploit a shaky defence.
Sadly unless United get knackered with fixture congestion I would see us finishing fifth this season . We can only hope the Totts blow up at the end as they did last season
Don’t you just have to laugh at the so called pundits where Foxes produced a very decent game against Pool and it was all because the sacking of Raineri.
I watched the last 20 minutes of this game on a foreign TV station and no one said a bad word about him and more than anything they called for the players themselves to dedicate this game to him and Shakespeare for that matter too as he was the man who built this team.
It just goes to show what the media hype can do here in England and it’s rather pathetic. Every manager is under the same pressure and when it comes to us there are even bigger expectations, I think is fair to say that everyone one knew it would be a one season wonder.
At the end of the day Leicester did us as huge favour and we seriously need to turn up on the weekend! Hope the players can respond before the man in charge is replaced because frankly I don’t particularly fancy all those belated dedications.
I dint see the Saints game only just watched the disallowed goal!
Jesus Christ football is the only sport where bad decisions and rules do not really apply!
Bring on technology ffs! How long do we have to watch this utter bullshit!
It’s like watching Xhaka fouls every time he does something it’s straight red!
We seriously needed to show up on the weekend before the Leicester loss, ATG. Poo have been losing to bottom clubs and beating top ones all season, so a draw will be a good result for us frankly.
Has cricket been improved by technology? I don’t think so…
There was a time when I would sit watching cricket and drinking beer and eating peanuts in a soporific trance all day long, happy in the belief that umpires got it right, most of the time, and when they didn’t, well, it all balanced out in the end. Then along came slo-mos, multi camera angles, Hawk Eye, DRS, Spider Cam, LED Bails, Snicometer, Hot Spot, Pitch Vision and no doubt others that don’t come to mind which show, conclusively (when the ‘experts’ can agree, which isn’t always), that the umps get it wrong as often as they get it right … that cricket dismissals are in fact a bit of a lottery.
Someone please explain how the technology can show the ball hitting the stumps with very nearly half the ball (to within a fraction of a milimetre), yet it’s only out if the ump said so before-hand, and it’s not out if that is what he said before-hand. In fact it’s like that because the technology can’t be trusted!
Sorry, but that stuff has taken all the enjoyment out of watching cricket for me, and I now only have it on in the background (if at all) while I’m doing something else. Or I record it and watch at high speed, stopping only to watch sixes and wickets. Perhaps I’ll end up doing the same for technologised football – replay at 6x, stopping only to watch the goals.
“football is the only sport where bad decisions and rules do not really apply! – ATG
No, golf is. The only bad decisions are made by the players themselves and they admit them, if there is any doubt. The level of honesty and etiquette displayed by pro golfers is astonishing and refreshing in these times.
Chris,
If cricket is now only enjoyable for you with sixes and wickets, you can save the fast forward button and simply watch a game of T20. All smash and bash and finished in 2 or 3 hours.
UTA.
Only since it was exposed as a lottery, Noosa. I used to love watching cricket before that.
Raineri – If any of you guys owned LC and you faced a real possibility of being relegated at the end of the season and knowing how hard it is to get promoted + the money difference between the Championship & Premier League, would you have seriously kept him?
We are playing “Pool on Saturday. I wonder if the coaching staff picked up any tactical pointers from “Pool’s game vs LC last night. If they did, we will see on Saturday.
Chris. Couldn’t disagree more about cricket. The introduction of technology has not only meant that a lot more correct decisions are made but the theatre of it all adds to the entertainment. I think it’s been a massive step in the right direction.
Hello Tapera @41
Yes, certainly. I wouldn’t have
arranged a meeting with the
senior players either. It’s a
risk but then it’s a risk to fire
him too and I’d rather show
the loyalty.
Cricket has been destroyed by DRS. Doubt it? Let me explain
LBW is given by the umpire, the batsman appeals, the ball is just clipping off stump therefore he is out on the umpire’s call.
Same scenario, exact same incident.
LBW is NOT given by the umpire, the fielding team appeals, the decision is NOT OUT on the umpire’s call because the ball, although just clipping the stump, is not deemed to be hitting the wicket.
The same scenario, technology shows the same thing, two different outcomes.
DRS is shit. Technology is shit.
You also have the daft scenario where a team might not appeal and over rule an injustice because they are not sure and they’re down to their last review, so they don’t use it but when their new ball is due, they throw it away on some firvolous bollocks, just to use it before they get anew set of reviews. So they stop the game for no real reason and everybody knows it’s bollocks.
DRS is shit. Again.
Football with technology will be a joke. The line decision has worked, that’s the only thing they need.
Steve T@43, I completely second that….Umpiring decisions in cricket have become far more accurate than before because of technology. Also agree that the reviews system adds to entertainment and drama of the game.
Run-outs, stumpings, fine nicks and even marginal no-ball calls are extremely difficult for on field umpires to get right all the time. Video assistance along with other technology like the snickometer, hotspot and ball tracking have made sure that the correct decision is made more often than not. Football needs to shake up its protectionist vision and start trying technology to make refereeing decisions more accurate than they are today.
I note the comments above about Leicester. Looks like the owners are getting a response straight away and they will stay up comfortably, plus they’ve transformed the mood and dynamic for the CL 2nd leg at only 1-2 down. Last 8 beckons or at least the stadium will be absolutely rocking as they give it a go. The knee jerk sympathy vote for Ranieri totally ignores that these owners, serious punters by the way, have shown loyalty and shrewdness as well as ruthlessness since buying the club in 2010. Pearson was given 4 years even when failing to get out of the Championship but was, of course, dumped after that ill-fated summer tour. Shrewdly, the owners retained Steve Walsh when jettisoning all the rest of Pearson’s team, long enough for him to scout and recruit Kante, as he had done with Mahrez and our chinny buddie Vardy (Walsh then left for Everton of course). Ranieri inherited a team, worked a miracle for sure and then it almost inevitably fell apart. The club is proactive, ambitious and pragmatic and are more concerned about the football side than the business side, perhaps making the long term connection between the two. COYG.
@ Taperi,@ Scgooner
I couldn’t have said it better in regards to Ranieri. Didn’t understand why people were going crazy neither. They were 1pt above relegation. Owners did the right thing in my opinion. There is no room for sentiments in football, its a results based business last time I checked. It should be anyways, maybe we should be more pragmatic as a club than been sentimental all the damn time.
Good thing the fixture fixer gave us a long Mardi Gras break this year.
Happy Mardi Gras everybody!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifo_VDdZm6s
One thing is for sure. The fix is in. 🙂
Fixture changes
Sunday April 2
4pm Arsenal v Manchester City (Sky Sports)
Wednesday April 5
7.45pm Arsenal v West Ham United*
Monday April 10
8pm Crystal Palace v Arsenal (Sky Sports)*
*Subject to Arsenal’s possible participation in the Champions League quarter-finals (piss taking cunts)
Monday April 17
8pm Middlesbrough v Arsenal (Sky Sports)*
*Subject to Arsenal’s possible participation in the Champions League quarter-finals (I say again. Piss taking cunts)
Sunday April 30
4.30pm Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal (Sky Sports)*
*Subject to Arsenal’s possible participation in the Champions League semi-finals (Ho ho ho. Wankers)
Whole lotta fixin’ going on.
brother o mine liked cricket
he slept in the yard
and we fed him wi a slingshot
but he stuck to his guns
god love im
More grumbling from an old grouch. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>