Standard of Referees

I’ve said for a long time now that the biggest problem with VAR is that it’s an objective solution to a generally subjective problem. We can all site Maradona or Henry punching it in and say we need VAR to stop it happening, fair enough, but you can count on your own fingers the number of times you’ve really seen those incidents happen in my lifetime. Those objective mistakes need to be corrected, which is what clear and obvious is supposed to be about. But VAR looks at a referees subjective opinion of whether something is a foul, today for example, and re refs it based on someone else’s subjective opinion. Some will say it’s a foul, some will say it isn’t, that’s football, it always happens, you’re left to deal with whatever the referee in your game thinks of it. It’s inherently subjective and the lie of VAR is that there is an objective “correct” decision to be made in every incident. You can argue there is in the case of offside, but it’s awful, but the view of a foul will be forever and a day subjective.

Trying to claim objectification of the subjective ties you in knots and destroys all that is good about the game and the fan experience, and football only has itself to blame for putting itself in this situation. A situation that has the potential to eventually kill the world’s greatest sport.
 
andyd said:
I’ve said for a long time now that the biggest problem with VAR is that it’s an objective solution to a generally subjective problem. We can all site Maradona or Henry punching it in and say we need VAR to stop it happening, fair enough, but you can count on your own fingers the number of times you’ve really seen those incidents happen in my lifetime. Those objective mistakes need to be corrected, which is what clear and obvious is supposed to be about. But VAR looks at a referees subjective opinion of whether something is a foul, today for example, and re refs it based on someone else’s subjective opinion. Some will say it’s a foul, some will say it isn’t, that’s football, it always happens, you’re left to deal with whatever the referee in your game thinks of it. It’s inherently subjective and the lie of VAR is that there is an objective “correct” decision to be made in every incident. You can argue there is in the case of offside, but it’s awful, but the view of a foul will be forever and a day subjective.

Trying to claim objectification of the subjective ties you in knots and destroys all that is good about the game and the fan experience, and football only has itself to blame for putting itself in this situation. A situation that has the potential to eventually kill the world’s greatest sport.
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Stopping huge errors should be what it is for. Not to go on some 4 minute mathematical exercise to determine whether it was 51/49 in favour of a foul.

It'll only get worse aswell It'll soon be an OJ Simpson like trial to determine whether Williams foul throws it.
 
Project Zeus said:
Different standards apply inside the box and they have done for as long as I can remember. It's one of those things about the sport.
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Why didn’t he get sent to the screen to give a penalty when Jesus received similar amount of contact in the box immediately after the penalty? Because Jesus didn’t spend 4 to 6 business days falling down?

Not only do we have different standards inside and outside the box, we now have different standards for attacking and defending teams, as well as different standards depending on the ref, and different standards depending on the VAR. Don’t forget the different standards depending on which team it is and finally the different standards depending on what has previously been given, whether the ball goes out of play immediately so they can look at it or seemingly, whether the VAR is even watching.

It’s an absolute dogs dinner.
 
Master Yates said:
Why didn’t he get sent to the screen to give a penalty when Jesus received similar amount of contact in the box immediately after the oenalty? Because Jesus didn’t spend 4 to 6 business days falling down?

Not only do we have different standards inside and outside the box, we now have different standards for attacking and defending teams, as well as different standards depending on the red, and different standards depending on the VAR. Don’t forget the different standards depending on which team it is and finally the different standards depending on what has previously been given, whether the ball goes out of play immediately so they can look at it or seemingly, whether the VAR is even watching.

It’s an absolute dogs dinner.
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I think this is the issue.

It's far too inconsistent, it's not even clear what VAR should be overturning these days, If that foul (and yes, it seems to be correct that it was a foul by Jesus) had been the other way, and the referee had given a penalty, would it be overturned for insufficient contact? I think there's a fair chance it would. But then we had similar issues where there was similar contact applied and the ref let it go. He was being consistent in what he applied; there was at least one or two of a similar level which weren't given either, I seem to recall maybe at least one in the area, which VAR didn't spend time on, so checking a goal for offences scored by the attacking team is clearly higher level of scrutiny than checking a penalty. Ok if that's what it is but that needs to be a bit more transparent.

When a decision is subjective it's clear to see from both perspectives why it is correct. There's not a lot of contact but there is contact and there being contact makes it a foul, whether it takes 1 second or 2 weeks for the player to go down, because a player doesn't have to go down to be given a foul, Arguably their number 8 had fouled plenty all match and was probably lucky to escape a yellow or maybe even two but that was also consistent with the rest of the game.

What was not consistent is the ref applying his own bar for the game (as he usually does set a high bar to give anything) and decide the contact was either not there or minimal enough to not prevent the goal, but then when VAR look at it and show him to the screen that's another ref at the same level with the benefit of multiple angles and slow motion etc looking at it and saying there's contact, once a ref goes to the screen it's still their decision but it usually means the VAR team have seen something the ref hasn't or might not have seen as important. Certainly just after the decision sky showed a replay from a completely different angle which clearly showed Jesus kicking the player's foot, if you see that it's clearly a foul and clearly not going to stand. Gillett isn't stupid either - he came over to do a PhD which I'd imagine he'd probably have completed by now (or shelved to be a referee whilst he can) and at that level listening to different viewpoints and being able to see the other side is quite important, I'd expect he'd have translated that a lot into the way he referees a game. If the VAR is telling him he might have got it wrong, he'll clearly be interested in seeing it. Similarly, I've more recently started thinking that with these decisions if the teams were reversed and the decision was given against Forest how we would think. If a Coventry player had kicked over Jair like that and scored, especially on seeing the replay, we'd expect it to be disallowed. But it still doesn't stop some teams appearing to get a higher bar with VAR even in the same match. That handball goal from Utd might be ludicrous but if the rules say that and a player can literally do that and not be penalised if it's deemed accidental and they don't score, but the bar for a player scoring is that it can't even be accidental, that's daft but if they have applied the rules correctly then the complaint is going to the wrong place...

... and yes, all this inconsistency and microanalysis of everything which happens is killing the game. I don't necessarily agree with the instinct of it but simply not celebrating goals for a few weeks may well make the impact it needs to
 
Their number 8, the one Jesus "fouled" in the build-up to our goal. He went down twice in the previous 15 minutes as if he had been elbowed. His theatrical rolling around was enough to show it was fake. If either were true we should have had a red if not, yellow for him.
 
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When I was working, it seems I was always running into middle managers who did things purely to put on their CV to show they were doing something. Not something to improve performance etc, but just doing "something".

It seems to be the problem with refereeing these days in football. VAR is an insoluble problem which isn't helped by the daft ideas constantly emanating from the IFAB HQ which confuse us all in the hurly-burly of the game. Simplicity should rule, because it's a simple game, at the higher echelons played a fast pace, with little time to debate the list of possibilities in the head. An instant decision is required, impossible in the conditions existing today.

So don't blame the ref, blame the clots who don't understand the fans eye view of football, the excitement, the tribal frenzy when the ball goes in the net. The excitement of a fast raid down the wing, through a shredded defence. All brought to nothing because VAR noticed a toe nail protruding beyond the defence.
 
I'm sick and tired of VAR now in any form, it's sucking the life out of the sport.

And I don't get the point of sending a ref to the monitors, just call it what you want.

There's probably been a case of 3 refs going against the VAR decision out of hundreds.

So just sack off the sending the ref to the monitor which doubles the time VAR has took up till then anyway and just call it what you want.
 
Apollo11 said:
I'm sick and tired of VAR now in any form, it's sucking the life out of the sport.

And I don't get the point of sending a ref to the monitors, just call it what you want.

There's probably been a case of 3 refs going against the VAR decision out of hundreds.

So just sack off the sending the ref to the monitor which doubles the time VAR has took up till then anyway and just call it what you want.
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The monitor thing at least drums up the toxic atmosphere in the ground even further, so there is that.
 
Apollo11 said:
I'm sick and tired of VAR now in any form, it's sucking the life out of the sport.

And I don't get the point of sending a ref to the monitors, just call it what you want.

There's probably been a case of 3 refs going against the VAR decision out of hundreds.

So just sack off the sending the ref to the monitor which doubles the time VAR has took up till then anyway and just call it what you want.
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It was never introduced for the good of the game, or for the good of the spectators.
How do we, the grass roots of the commercial aspect of the game, and the ones who fill the stadiums with vocal support get to influence the decision makers?
 
I thought y'all liked Gillette? Lol. I think he is ok, but that VAR decision does not add up at all, given what he let go during the game. Like the three straight off the ball fouls (Delap first followed by two others) that he didn't punish with at least a caution to one of them. That is bad refereeing, imho. I think this just reinforces that Webb should resign. The situation with refereeing in England continues to be wildly inconsistent. Having said that, we should not be in a position to rely on refereeing decisions against a Championship level side. The performance was shit.
 
PynchonForest said:
I thought y'all liked Gillette? Lol. I think he is ok, but that VAR decision does not add up at all, given what he let go during the game. Like the three straight off the ball fouls (Delap first followed by two others) that he didn't punish with at least a caution to one of them. That is bad refereeing, imho. I think this just reinforces that Webb should resign. The situation with refereeing in England continues to be wildly inconsistent. Having said that, we should not be in a position to rely on refereeing decisions against a Championship level side. The performance was shit.
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He was consistent in that he set a high bar for challenges and cards for both teams. The problem is that the VAR had a different view and/or the benefit of different angles, and that other refs don't have the same view.

I don't think it was a bad performance but the challenge which led to the goal was one he let go in open play. And it was clear from the other angles that it was a foul.
 
Apollo11 said:
I'm sick and tired of VAR now in any form, it's sucking the life out of the sport.

And I don't get the point of sending a ref to the monitors, just call it what you want.

There's probably been a case of 3 refs going against the VAR decision out of hundreds.

So just sack off the sending the ref to the monitor which doubles the time VAR has took up till then anyway and just call it what you want.
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I don't know why they don't do away with the whole charade and ask VAR who they want to win the game a day before kick off.

That way as fans we could save ourselves the hassle of having to watch it happen.
 
VAR is a symptom of the wider age we live in. No one is allowed to make a mistake, so we have Miss Marple poring over something as trivial as a football goal.

And in our obsession with getting the details right, we destroy the big picture. Just as the finance department brings in timesheets and destroys trust in a business; so the football authorities bring in VAR, ruining those visceral moments that made us fall in love with the game to start with.
 
Forest v Coventry VAR Paul Howard has only ever refereed a first division match. Surely you need someone who has refereed at the highest level.
 
PynchonForest said:
I thought y'all liked Gillette? Lol. I think he is ok, but that VAR decision does not add up at all, given what he let go during the game. Like the three straight off the ball fouls (Delap first followed by two others) that he didn't punish with at least a caution to one of them. That is bad refereeing, imho. I think this just reinforces that Webb should resign. The situation with refereeing in England continues to be wildly inconsistent. Having said that, we should not be in a position to rely on refereeing decisions against a Championship level side. The performance was shit.
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It doesn't matter if we were Derby 08 levels of shit, the officiating and refereeing should still be consistent and correct

Why do folk continually come out with a bollocks caveat about "we shouldn't rely on the refereeing" as it isn't at all relevant to the debate
 
Eddie Yates said:
It doesn't matter if we were Derby 08 levels of shit, the officiating and refereeing should still be consistent and correct

Why do folk continually come out with a bollocks caveat about "we shouldn't rely on the refereeing" as it isn't at all relevant to the debate
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Because we should not have to rely on a single refereeing decision to beat a team that is awful. The rest of the league get the same referees as us. And last time I checked, Coventry are not a "cartel" club.
 
PynchonForest said:
Because we should not have to rely on a single refereeing decision to beat a team that is awful. The rest of the league get the same referees as us. And last time I checked, Coventry are not a "cartel" club.
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No we rely on the referees being competant. If a player plays badly they get dropped, if a ref has a bad game they very rarely suffer any consequences and will be be back the following week.
 
uredsuns said:
No we rely on the referees being competant. If a player plays badly they get dropped, if a ref has a bad game they very rarely suffer any consequences and will be be back the following week.
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An incompetent ref is not preventing a team that's playing well from winning.

Was it the ref's fault Sels was glued to his line? Ref's fault that Munoz completely misjudged the flight of the ball? Or that Ndoye is about as menacing as a toddler? Or that we consistently misplaced passes or took too long to make them?

It's a cop out for me. Sort your own shit out and the ref is not a factor.

And by the way the right decision was made anyway, it was a foul and the server for this forum would've melted if it was the other end and not given. Comments like "yeah but 3 years and 4 months ago a very similar foul wasn't given for us" are pathetic really.
 
uredsuns said:
No we rely on the referees being competant. If a player plays badly they get dropped, if a ref has a bad game they very rarely suffer any consequences and will be be back the following week.
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If I did my job as inconsistently badly as many of the Referees from the (so-called) "Best League in the World" (™) I would have been sacked by now.

It really is as simple as that.
 
PynchonForest said:
Because we should not have to rely on a single refereeing decision to beat a team that is awful. The rest of the league get the same referees as us. And last time I checked, Coventry are not a "cartel" club.
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It doesn't matter if we're playing like Brazil 82 or Derby 08, the reffing should be correct

Do you think that shit teams should just accept poor refereeing?
 
For me anyone complaining about a decision against Forest needs to ask themselves the following question:

Would I want the same decision against the opposition if it was at the other end?

If the answer is yes then you have no grounds for complaint in my opinion.
 
Can we just bring back the old chant, that used to reverberate around the WFCG some years ago?

"The Referee's a w**ker!"

I mean, nowadays, most of them are, are they not?
 
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