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

[toshes mate]

Even with very clear and cleanly cut rules there is still the presence of a human being making a final decision and regardless of how that decision is reached (e.g. VAR or No-VAR) it will always be fallible.

When referees made mistakes before the days of TV coverage you had to get on with it whether player or punter.  Now with TV coverage you could swear under oath that what you have seen is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and still be lying because your brain will try to make sense of what you see even if it an optical illusion (and watching TV is a classic optical illusion).
   
An incident when viewed from a series of different angles two dimensional images is not the same thing as being in the same position as a TV camera and using your three dimensional sight to figure out what happened just as a referee does in real time.  Experienced and effective referees make those decisions almost instantly because they are so used to doing it and from pitch level where the view is quite different to those watching in stands.   Referees have good days and bad days and may even have days when something causes them to be unnecessarily biased against a player or team.   Who knows what aggravates or upsets the judgement of individuals but it is fact of life that it happens to everybody.

And so why do we even contemplate looking at systems which cannot improve on anything other than very clear cut errors which I would hope, in most games, do not even happen.  Before VAR football was imperfect but entertaining.   With VAR football is imperfect, irritating and often bloody painful to watch.   Is that entertaining enough or can we make it even worse?   

[SG]

I'd refer to simplicity. If there is daylight between a forward and defender it is offside. No Active, no from armpit down, no clearly attempting. If you're off you're off and every single person can interpret that 100%.

Agree 100%. Trouble is I come back to my original point - the people who make these laws have never played the game and don't appear to fully understand the implications of their deliberations

[RaySmith]

I'd refer to simplicity. If there is daylight between a forward and defender it is offside. No Active, no from armpit down, no clearly attempting. If you're off you're off and every single person can interpret that 100%.

Agree 100%. Trouble is I come back to my original point - the people who make these laws have never played the game and don't appear to fully understand the implications of their deliberations

Should  make  it at least,  say, two metres between a player and the last defender for it to be off-side, or body width or something.
To have   an outstretched arm, or a knee or hip given as offside, because it is technically according to a computer programme, is ridiculous.

[Arthur]

Herein lies the issue- it's not easy to interpret and relies too much on human consideration- which will always lead to different outcomes. It should be made clear as the law really isn't. I saw an attempt to clearly play the ball as he jumped to reach it, you saw it as half-heated. Surely the potential for an important point for a club like Fulham can't come down to a referee believing that a jump was half-hearted??

It's an overall picture, I would say. Firstly, the referee interprets the ball as not being close enough to Haller. In which case, even if the West Ham forward were making a determined effort to get to the ball, the referee doesn't have to deem him offside. Secondly, he judges that a player in Andersen's position, defending that particular pass into the penalty area, is likely to try to head the ball clear even when there isn't a player in an offside position.

I'd refer to simplicity. If there is daylight between a forward and defender it is offside. No Active, no from armpit down, no clearly attempting. If you're off you're off and every single person can interpret that 100%.

Even if 'every single person can interpret (offside)100%', this doesn't, in my opinion, necessarily make it just. For instance, if football does away with the idea that a player can be standing in an offside position yet not be active, then it disallows goals such as West Ham's last minute 30-yard screamer into the top corner that completed their 3-goal comeback at Tottenham last month: there was a Hammers' player on the opposite side of the the six-yard box who was clearly offside. As well as this seeming unjust to me, I question how good it would be for an industry that sells itself to spectators as entertainment to quash exciting and enthralling moments such as that in favour of awarding unexciting and unenthralling offside decisions for the sake of simplicity.

[toshes mate]

It's an overall picture, I would say. Firstly, the referee interprets the ball as not being close enough to Haller. In which case, even if the West Ham forward were making a determined effort to get to the ball, the referee doesn't have to deem him offside. Secondly, he judges that a player in Andersen's position, defending that particular pass into the penalty area, is likely to try to head the ball clear even when there isn't a player in an offside position.

Even if 'every single person can interpret (offside)100%', this doesn't, in my opinion, necessarily make it just. For instance, if football does away with the idea that a player can be standing in an offside position yet not be active, then it disallows goals such as West Ham's last minute 30-yard screamer into the top corner that completed their 3-goal comeback at Tottenham last month: there was a Hammers' player on the opposite side of the the six-yard box who was clearly offside. As well as this seeming unjust to me, I question how good it would be for an industry that sells itself to spectators as entertainment to quash exciting and enthralling moments such as that in favour of awarding unexciting and unenthralling offside decisions for the sake of simplicity.

You have certainly convinced me as to the reasons why goals can be allowed or disallowed for offside, but simplicity or complexity of rules does influence behaviours and conformity.  A certain Mr Cummings on a completely different matter taught us that if nobody else.  And so have players learned how to exploit loopholes in the law and have referees become smart enough to pick up the subterfuges involved or has the game reduced itself to farcical levels of deduction in an attempt to prove itself to be more sophisticated for an apparently very sophisticated age?       

[Jim©]

Even if 'every single person can interpret (offside)100%', this doesn't, in my opinion, necessarily make it just. For instance, if football does away with the idea that a player can be standing in an offside position yet not be active, then it disallows goals such as West Ham's last minute 30-yard screamer into the top corner that completed their 3-goal comeback at Tottenham last month: there was a Hammers' player on the opposite side of the the six-yard box who was clearly offside. As well as this seeming unjust to me, I question how good it would be for an industry that sells itself to spectators as entertainment to quash exciting and enthralling moments such as that in favour of awarding unexciting and unenthralling offside decisions for the sake of simplicity.

But in that case you quote it would be completely "just" as everyone knows the rules (if it were to be adopted).
However what we're left with is a system where personal interpretation of the rules (such as whether Haller's attempted to play the ball or not) spoils it all. The point could end up being hugely pivotal to our season, finances, the jobs of hundreds of staff etc etc etc. VAR and the new complexity of refereeing is spoiling this game and offside is the most prominent of those.

[Arthur]

But in that case you quote it would be completely "just" as everyone knows the rules (if it were to be adopted).
However what we're left with is a system where personal interpretation of the rules (such as whether Haller's attempted to play the ball or not) spoils it all. The point could end up being hugely pivotal to our season, finances, the jobs of hundreds of staff etc etc etc. VAR and the new complexity of refereeing is spoiling this game and offside is the most prominent of those.

Football is always 'fair' in that the laws of the game, on the day, are the same for both teams. Maybe it wasn't clear from my post that the context to a blanket offside law not being 'just' is that (just like the current offside ruling) it can't always deliver the 'deserved outcome'.

We have already seen with handball, this season, that removing the need for a referee to interpret what he sees is only achievable if there is an unbending application of the law: if a defender's arm came into contact with the ball in the penalty area, a penalty was awarded irrespective of any other consideration. With the aid of VAR, every single person could be 100% clear there had been contact between ball and arm. In terms of consistency, not one player got away with handling the ball. Zero mistakes in one sense. And yet the whole notion of operating in such a draconian fashion was the biggest mistake of all. Managers, players and supporters were (if you'll pardon the pun) 'up in arms' at the injustice of some of the 'offences' that were penalised. Within weeks, a degree of interpretion was re-introduced.

I foresee that much the same outcry would occur if football were to adopt the simplistic - and, in my opinion, equally draconian - ruling that 'offside is offside - no ifs or buts'.

[Carborundum]

Goal line technology = instant decision = great

VAR = big delay in play = almost as bad as rugby

[FFC NY]

Some better cameras could help...half of the images released when looking at offsides are at an angle...there's a reason assistant refs move up and down the touchline when it's at an angle you're guessing. There should be sliding cameras on rails on each side of the pitch keeping up with play similar to the 100m...better images = better decisions.