V A bloody R

Totally agree...and the joy of being in The Mount at 5 o'clock moaning like **** the ref's a bent barstool will be lost.

The game is primal...played and officiated by men/women in an arena in the heat of contest...we're going to lose an essence of the beautiful game.

 

The thing for me is firstly i agree with Jay that it takes the emotion out of the game making it clinical where only perfection exists. Secondly it contradicts itself. it still needs ref interpretation and 90% of what happens leading up to that 'perfect' moment is ignored by VAR. a goal could be given for being 1mm onside and a foul in the build up totally ignored.

 

That's unfortunate.

 

I was a big fan of var. I'd still like to see it made to work properly but you're right. Whenever I try to explain the joy of football to a non believer who says there aren't enough goals like in basketball or something I stress the massive release of joy, adrenaline, relief, ecstasy most goals generate simply because they're rare and usually key to a game.
Take that away and the game is screwed.

 

It’s pre season for referees too. They need practise with the system.

 

It'd be fine if they used it for what it was intended, to eliminate clear and obvious errors where the ref just missed something.

It was meant to be a tool to help refs, instead it trips them up on every decision.

I've yet to watch a game live with VAR, but like Jay I expect it'll ruin it.

My only hope is that there'll be that much VAR controversy when they bring it in to the Premier League, it might never make it to the lower leagues.

 

they use goal line technology, though, in the championship I believe.

 

Correct, with the cameras in the west/east stand

 

No. But Newcastle’s in the 1910 final would have.

 

You’ve got a hell of a memory there LS!

 

Old, but not that old, mate.

Just remember reading about the 1910 final some years ago and it stuck with me that we were playing a big club and, as usual, were on the receiving end of a dodgy refereeing decision.

 

I tend to agree with Jay in that it kills the spontaneity of the game, However if we (as a collective) think that obvious wrong decisions are eliminated I would have thought that someone in the higher echelons of the game would have said something along the lines of one VAR reference in each half per team to be decided by the head coach only for goal decisions re offsides/handball/penalties - with the VAR reference to be retained if successful. Thus limiting the number of stoppages.

 

We should ONLY employ goal line technology-nothing else. We only need to see if the ball was over the line or not-simple.
Everything else should be left to the referee and his linespeople, human as they are.

You get good calls and bad ones, we have both suffered and benefited from these in the past as has every club.

These days a bad call can cost clubs millions, in my day it would result in a few grumbles and the "ref needs glasses" discussion in the pub afterward

Who'd be a referee these days, we need them, and their honest decisions, right or wrong, are picked apart by the TV "pundits" with the benefit of ultra slow motion replays.

Might as well hand the entire refereeing requirement over to TV cameras and Artificial Intelligence algorithms