V A R...is anyone else sick of it.?

[SG]

The concept is sound. It is the tossers who are implementing it and adjudicating that are the problem. Offside law should be amended to there being say clear daylight between an attacker and the upper torso (chest) of a defender - just like they use in athletics photo finishes. Interfering with play is a judgement but if like last night the bloke is in the penalty area and close to where the ball is travelling he is interfering as a defender has this player to deal with.
Handball is an absolute joke. It used to be that it had to be deliberate - a player moves his hand towards the ball. Now god only knows. Trouble is that most of those making these laws are referees and administrators that have never played the game

[BarryP]

i tried to be for it. can't do it anymore, think its awful. not just in england either

It seems the opposite to me.  VAR in England is dreadful but in both the Bundesliga and MLS it more often than not seems to be utilized as the referees aid it is intended to be.  It was interesting when MLS  came back after COVID they broadcast the interaction between the referee and the VAR ref. The VAR ref simply told the ref what they saw while the referee viewed the footage and then the referee made the final call. In every circumstance I saw only clear and obvious calls were overturned.  The Bundesliga seems to do something similar and is the league that handles VAR the best in my opinion.

Handball calls however are a mess. They need to bring back the intent rule and trust referees to interpret the situations.

[toshes mate]

Without consistency in findings and application no system can survive criticism.  VAR was intended to improve consistency and it has actually made things worse for all those watching.  To my mind it is almost feeding the media betting company beasts via its delay and eventual outcome on the flimsiest of excuses.  Other sports do not have such controversy with reviews although there are the odd moments when you feel a decision could have gone either way. 

We already know there is massive potential for corruption in sport and I believe the PL has gladly opened its doors to yet another failed gimmick.  Even goal line technology can fail and yet where was VAR when those real goals were determined to be phantom?   Common sense has walked away from humanity in the past two decades and I can see no sign of it returning.

[Dixie]

Football had long held the view that the game should be exactly the same whether playing sunday league football at the local park or playing in the cathedral of football (Craven Cottage) and that introducing technology would break this link between the grass roots and the top tier of the game.
We have all grown up with football without VAR and had to endure bad decisions going against us (and occasionally for us!) and that is just part and parcel of the game. There is not always an absolute. As someone already mentioned, it's still a human making the decision.

I think that it has a lot to do with the media coverage and the fact that they could pore over a controversial decision in slow motion from multiple angles and prove that the refereeing team were wrong and that an injustice had been served. Who would want to be a referee given that level of scrutiny and the backlash that could follow?

I would love to get rid of it right away (except goal line technology), but don't think that's going to happen. So as suggested above, a limited number of appeals could be a great way to proceed as a compromise

[Lighthouse]

I agree that goal line tech is the only thing that works. Otherwise we are just bringing in more peoples opinions into every moment of debate and making the game duller and more frustrating. Plus we are still having stupid decisions over penalties and handball and offside. In the end the officials have stopped officiating and seem to wait for conformation before they want to make a decision.

The whole point of VAR was to make the game more honest and fair. It hasn't. It just brings in more controversy and more delay. End the farce before yet another large hole opens up in the foundations of what once made the game fun to watch.

[sonnyjim]

It's poo and it's ruining football. All you have to do now and what all teams need to practice is aiming at a defender inside the box, smashing the ball as hard as you can towards them and hope it hits one of their arms. Then you wave your arms around like a 5 year old brat and when they watch the replay on the VAR which is slowed down and shows the ball hitting his arm, it will be a penalty.

Football is actually getting more and more ridiculous. It was supposed to make things better but when you are offside for pointing where you want the ball to be played to (your arm is offside) but a player standing in an offside position (west ham) is not.

[jarv]

Is there anyone on here who can start a groundswell, the goal to approach Fulham management and start a lobby to get rid of it? Get enough signatures and the supporter representative(s) take it to the meetings which take place. Contact all premier league supporters sites to lobby them to do the same. Collect all data, ie, mistakes made to support the cause.

It worked for pay per view and the league and media backed down.

If not, go all the way and have trial by tv the next day, change the result of the west ham game to 0-0. They do it for red cards so why not illegal goals.....I am just being facetious now. Had to have a dig.

[mrmicawbers]

Get rid asap.Is there anyone in favour of it?It's been trled and failed in my opinion.

[Woolly Mammoth]

Football is eating itself from within, and will collapse like a pack of cards.
From the obscene salaries paid to players to the cheating and play acting by the spoilt brat players. The fawning and indulging of the big clubs by Sky and other media outlets with their pundits and presenters showing no shame of their obvious bias favouritism and worshiping of the so called glamour clubs.
Back on the field of play if the cheating and play acting and diving and feigning injury does not already finished you off, the VAR will.
Professional football at the top level is sleep walking into oblivion and it does not realise it blinded by greed and corruption.
Going back to VAR, if you asked anybody to think of a way of ruining what is left of the beautiful game in one fail swoop, VAR would be the answer added to all the other reasons why Association Football is eating itself from within without any help from outside sources, it now appears that the administrators are in a state of comatose. Plus many top clubs are built on sand and are more or less owned by the banks.
If we ever get back to some form of normality, the question is will some of these Premier League clubs ever get a full house again, will some supporters decide enough is enough and it is no longer value for money supporting millionaires having tantrums when a referee administers a decision against them.
You make not think that is a big issue at the moment, but it will be if the average Joe and Josephine decide not to renew their season ticket.
Never say never, despite we all sometimes think nothing will ever change when it comes to supporting and watching your favourite team live in a stadium. Well due to circumstances beyond our control, we are seeing football being hit by an outside source to add to football being damaged by its own greed and self indulgence.
Who could have envisaged 20 years ago this happening.
Is this just the beginning, is there worse to come.

[SG]

Woolly - agree almost 100%. However every time I think Premiership football in particular is on the verge of collapse it seems to survive and resurrect itself. Every time I think somethings will change the opportunity is missed or ignored. It's going to take something cataclysmic to force change upon it

[toshes mate]

Unfortunately football referees can be just as mercenary as players when it comes to the upper echelon benefits, and the grass roots of the game are hardly enriched with large numbers of people wishing to become football officials.  And when it comes to VAR referees should hold the key because it is their integrity and ablity that is being questioned.  Do they have the stomach or bottle to refuse to engage with VAR unless and until it stops trying to and making futile ball to arm contacts or hairbreadth and finger pointing offside judgements and simply becomes a tool for spotting errors of omission on the pitch which any fan would also have noticed e.g. inconsistency etc.  And does such a system need to be media 'friendly' (read sensational) or is it better to engage with the public to explain controversy after the match.  What is not needed is an army of officials in a bunker looking at monitors and pretending to themselves that a single line of screen pixels on a monitor representing several real centimetres of width on a pitch is a fair way to judge whether one boot lace was in front of another boot lace?    It is a staggeringly dumb system invented by people who have been brain dead for a long time.

[Woolly Mammoth]

Rugby is far more transparent when it comes to lettering the onlooker know exactly what is going on.
Perhaps it is something to do with the fact they are more educated in communicating and respecting the spectator. Clearly the players respect the referees far more, because despite it being a brutal sport with the odd villain of there own. They are far more disciplined, their pundits do not fall over themselves to be seen being mates with the players, and the referees are always in full contact with those upstairs and are not afraid of the players, whereas football referees and linesman are afraid and rather pretend not to see anything or hear anything unless it hits them straight between the eyes. Either that or they are so in awe of the players that they shrink as officials and they themselves become spectators. The whole system stinks, the players have far too much power, and so many with mediocre talent and far too much money, so they no longer need worry about when their next wage is due, so they could walk away at any time, only their egos and the enjoyment of being idolised by sky tv prevents them from shoving off into the wilderness. Football can learn a lot from Rugby but football thinks it knows best for some deluded reasons. Football can start by introducing sin bins only for dissent. We have it at grass roots level and it takes the sting out of issues because no manager or team wishes to be left one man shy for 15 minutes, and it calms the Cretins down. 
So much wrong with football, and that has been tolerated for far too long by the Red Tape Merchants and the Yellow Belly quangos at the FA and Football League, they all have their snouts in the trough.
He who pays the piper calls the tune and the turnips at Sky have made sure that unwittingly they are the main architects of why football will shrink in popularity as it slowly but surely ceases to be a competition on a level playing field and not just there for the benefit of the Premier League and Sky.
Once the sponsorships evaporate and the realisation that the long suffering supporters are the lifeline of association football as we use to know it, the damage may have already been done, and the biggest concern is that the Football League and FA never seem to learn from their mistakes and shortcomings.

[Jim©]

I see that Dermot Gallgaher has come out and said it was the CORRECT decision?!?!?!?

INCIDENT: Tomas Soucek's 91st-minute winner is allowed to stand despite Sebastien Haller standing in an offside position during the first phase of play with the ball played into the Fulham box towards the Frenchman. Haller is still standing in an offside position when Soucek's shot beats Alphonse Areola.

VERDICT: Correct decision - goal.

DERMOT SAYS: VAR checked it as they check every goal, and there's a small anomaly in the law there as when the ball is played towards Haller, even though he jumps for the ball, it's so far above his head that he's deemed not to be interfering with play as he can't play that ball.

"It's impossible for him to play it because of the height of the cross. It's perhaps one of the few times that the law works in the forward's favour. Once the defender heads it out, the ball is still in play. As it gets returned back, Haller was in an onside position."

So, just because it's impossible for him to play it as the cross was high, it's allowed to stand? That makes no sense at all, it's a joke.

[filham]

I have been watching Fulham regularly since about 1948 and there has always been dispute and discussion about handball and offside decisions in professional football but never has it been so widespread as it is right now.

VAR is not helping at all.

[Woolly Mammoth]

and neither is Dermot Gallagher.

[Lighthouse]

I see that Dermot Gallgaher has come out and said it was the CORRECT decision?!?!?!?

INCIDENT: Tomas Soucek's 91st-minute winner is allowed to stand despite Sebastien Haller standing in an offside position during the first phase of play with the ball played into the Fulham box towards the Frenchman. Haller is still standing in an offside position when Soucek's shot beats Alphonse Areola.

VERDICT: Correct decision - goal.

DERMOT SAYS: VAR checked it as they check every goal, and there's a small anomaly in the law there as when the ball is played towards Haller, even though he jumps for the ball, it's so far above his head that he's deemed not to be interfering with play as he can't play that ball.

"It's impossible for him to play it because of the height of the cross. It's perhaps one of the few times that the law works in the forward's favour. Once the defender heads it out, the ball is still in play. As it gets returned back, Haller was in an onside position."

So, just because it's impossible for him to play it as the cross was high, it's allowed to stand? That makes no sense at all, it's a joke.

We all know this is embarrassingly wrong. If a defender is marking a forward and plays him offside. The defender has made a decision about the forward and is marking nobody else. The fact that the cross is woeful and then he plays an active part in the second phase proves he is and was interfering with play. A defender who is taken away from another position and player to mark is obviously assuming the forward is a threat. Otherwise we will have bizarre situations like, well the one we had. Embarrassing for our game and frankly the game is dying. It will be blamed on the virus but what is the point of us as fans returning to watch a game when so many decisions now make no sense.

[Andy S]

VAR is good but it still needs tidying up as to how it is used and what it is used for

[shepperton white]

As far as offside decisions are made, I feel it should be judged on the players' feet and not their bodies. Just because an attacking player is 6' 6" and leans further than a 5' 10" defender that make him offside.

[SG]

Gallaghers comments are typical of a referee who has never played football. Anybody who has played particularly a defender will know that a player close to you is liable to be interfering with your decision making and therefore with play. If that player is then found to be in an offside position then it is offside. The fact that he couldn't play the cross is a factor but not the only consideration. These referees who make up these interpretations really haven't got a clue. Many years ago Danny Blanchflower once said of a player if he isn't interfering with play he shouldn't be on the pitch. So true in this case

[alfie]

Gallaghers comments are typical of a referee who has never played football. Anybody who has played particularly a defender will know that a player close to you is liable to be interfering with your decision making and therefore with play. If that player is then found to be in an offside position then it is offside. The fact that he couldn't play the cross is a factor but not the only consideration. These referees who make up these interpretations really haven't got a clue. Many years ago Danny Blanchflower once said of a player if he isn't interfering with play he shouldn't be on the pitch. So true in this case

It's not just the defender, he had to be in the eyeline of the keeper, so that's 2 players from him being in that position that have been distracted.