Soft penalties

[RAY Rock ????]

The one on Saturday was very soft but the ref gave it so fair enough. We got a soft penalty against Liverpool when mitro got slight contact I didn't hear anyone complaining then in my opinion let the refs make the decision's and get rid of VAR. on sky this morning Dermot Gallagher completely bottled giving an answer on the penalties he was trying not to laugh and was fumbling his words.

[alfie]

The one on Saturday was very soft but the ref gave it so fair enough. We got a soft penalty against Liverpool when mitro got slight contact I didn't hear anyone complaining then in my opinion let the refs make the decision's and get rid of VAR. on sky this morning Dermot Gallagher completely bottled giving an answer on the penalties he was trying not to laugh and was fumbling his words.

How about couple of games ago when Mitro went down rolling around after a so called headbutt.
ALL players will seek to gain an advantage if they can.

[fulhamfever]

No such thing as 'Soft Penalty' it either is or it isnt.

[Andy S]

Not quite true. A referee can be led to believe a player has been caught by another player when you look at it on a replay it is still not clear. A referee's job is to keep the game moving and not to get every decision correct. If the referee makes a mistake it is a soft penalty.

[toshes mate]

It wouldn't matter so much if all penalties given were either of the hard or soft varieties.  We are crying out loud for consistency since that is the only way to eliminate the margins of error as far as they can be eliminated.  There'll always be debate but, IMO, football is either deliberately inviting controversy or is steadily falling apart at the seams trying to appease itself.  VAR, which is not three dimensional, cannot be helpful unless it captures an event at precisely the right angle.  This means that if there is an angle that shows a gap between the offender's limb and the victim's limb then that camera is not lying since it is at the right angle (in all senses) to the supposed offence.  From any other angle contact cannot be demonstrated to have caused a player to fall since the picture is not showing trur depth.  A TV camera is using a sophisticated telescopic lens to appear to get closer to the action and that distorts the depth of field.  Conjurors and magicians have used such distortion in tricks for centuries. 

[Lighthouse]

The idea that any slight contact in the penalty box causes a player to collapse in a heap is cheating. Football used to be about contact and tackles. Not a brush of a foot sending a player down in an attempt to win a penalty. It really isn't fair to say that becasue we don't howl and complain when Fulham players do it then that is ok. It isn't. Frankly this season if you look at the West Ham hand balls and the Man City penalty. I don't think we have had a fair crack of the rules.

It is cheating and it spoils the game whoever does it. Now we have the bizarre situation that hand balls or slight contact means penalties. It spoils the game and frankly is another reason not to pay huge amounts of money to watch games live anymore.

[alfie]

The idea that any slight contact in the penalty box causes a player to collapse in a heap is cheating. Football used to be about contact and tackles. Not a brush of a foot sending a player down in an attempt to win a penalty. It really isn't fair to say that becasue we don't howl and complain when Fulham players do it then that is ok. It isn't. Frankly this season if you look at the West Ham hand balls and the Man City penalty. I don't think we have had a fair crack of the rules.

It is cheating and it spoils the game whoever does it. Now we have the bizarre situation that hand balls or slight contact means penalties. It spoils the game and frankly is another reason not to pay huge amounts of money to watch games live anymore.

I believe this all stems from Platini when he was FIFA he was advocating totally non contact football. Seems the referees agree with him.

[Andy S]

I agree

[filham]

The idea that any slight contact in the penalty box causes a player to collapse in a heap is cheating. Football used to be about contact and tackles. Not a brush of a foot sending a player down in an attempt to win a penalty. It really isn't fair to say that becasue we don't howl and complain when Fulham players do it then that is ok. It isn't. Frankly this season if you look at the West Ham hand balls and the Man City penalty. I don't think we have had a fair crack of the rules.

It is cheating and it spoils the game whoever does it. Now we have the bizarre situation that hand balls or slight contact means penalties. It spoils the game and frankly is another reason not to pay huge amounts of money to watch games live anymore.
[/quote

Agree. We need to reinstate the old hand hits ball equals penalty/ball hits hand no penalty attitude.
Not sure how we can now get away from the diving attitude though.

[Woolly Mammoth]

The game is eating itself from within with players collapsing as soon as somebody's sneezes.
The other day i was watching a match on the box, and i brushed past the TV and a player collapsed in agony.
It is cheating there is no other word for it.
How many times do we see players on the ground pretending to be injured waiting for the ball to be kicked out of play.
All this is killing the game as is the time it takes for VAR to decide and even then they still get it wrong.
Time wasting is getting out of hand and the game will eventually lose its appeal as we used to know it.
Time players and managers grew up, before it is too late.
I would like to see referees miked up like in Rugby which is a mans game unlike football which is full of rich prima donnas and cheats and big girls blouses, plus a corrupt establishment who think football ends in with Klopp and Guardiola who both use a cheque book as a crutch.

[Ronnief]

With the emphasis on concussion, I see more players when they go down always now hold their head so the Ref will stop the game.
Another thing that annoys me is when a player is badly fouled and has to receive treatment he has to go off the field. Surely the player committing the foul should go off for the same time.

[Rupert]

With the emphasis on concussion, I see more players when they go down always now hold their head so the Ref will stop the game.
Another thing that annoys me is when a player is badly fouled and has to receive treatment he has to go off the field. Surely the player committing the foul should go off for the same time.

This was originally brought in to speed play up. Like many rules it is not applied properly.

A player goes to ground, the ref blows the whistle and the player indicates he is in distress either through an injury or cramp. Can he carry on?
Yes, right get up, let's go.
No, right, call on the trainer and the stretcher.

Trainer, can he walk?
Yes, okay, off you go.
No, okay, get him on the stretcher.

Game resumes.

In all the years this has been the rule, I have seen it applied properly just once. There was an under-18 international at the Cottage between England and Argentina, and the German ref applied the rule ruthlessly. An Argie went down and was carried off, and did not return. An Englishman did the same, off he went on the stretcher and was then frantically worked on while the game carried on. None of this just assessing the injury while spraying it that usually goes on. As a result, players only went down when genuinely hurt, and the game flowed.

And what if the player who injured him? The sanction already exists, a card for the foul.

I would argue that if the foul was not worthy of a card, then the fouled player is either unlucky, or needs to man up if he has to leave the pitch. Any player who clutches his head in an attempt to get an opponent carded or the game delayed can also be ordered off the pitch, to check for concussion. Do that a few times, with the team then short for a couple of minutes, and players would rapidly pack it in. Feigning injury is a blight, but the game already has the tools to deal with it. We just fail to do so.

[bog]

We have have goals, players and managers of the month why not Dive of the Month?  :022: Ole KDB has to up for this month's.

[Lordedmundo]

As soon as KDB replanted the foot he was supposedly tripped with and orchestrated a dive that was without any contact from our player - I believe VAR should have asked the referee to review. It would be for him to then establish whether the initial contact was sufficient to be classed as a foul, or whether in fact he gave the penalty based on viewing KDB's fall (dive), or being a result of the initial contact (it clearly wasn't!).

The whole directive of 'a clear and obvious error' is causing issues as it seems impossible to apply consistently. The directive should instead be (words to the effect of): a 'possible error' - so that the VAR refs are obliged to ask the on pitch ref to take a look at anything they think he 'may' have got wrong when seeing in real time, or not having a good view of etc. In reality, it may lead to 1-2 extra incidents being reviewed per match, but probably no more than that.

An example of the lack of consistency is the foul on Willian against Everton. In my opinion this was a definite trip (and therefore a 'clear and obvious error'), so why didn't VAR ask the ref to take another look at that?

[Stevieboy]

It's the old pals act, if it's a referee doing VAR he will be lack to repeatedly ask referees to check their decisions.
You only have to see Dermot Gallagher doing Ref Watch on Sky to realise this.

[jarv]

Let the referee ref the game VAR hs to go, utter nonsense, holds up the game too much for too long. I am still angry about the west ham goals.

Footnote, the VAR referees, when interviewed, never put their hand up and say I made a howler. I cant recall any apologies from them.