Referee scrutiny

[Tucker]

Or maybe fans have absurd expectations of perfection for the guy making 80k a year.

Most people would be in dream land making 80k a year.

 

[Tucker]

My problem with refs isn't so much the refs themselves, it's IFAB and their predecessors making a simple game far too complicated to officiate.

I want more rigid rules and fewer grey areas open to interpretation. Offside is the best example of a simple rule riddled with complicated variants. Get rid of them and the standard of officials would undoubtedly get better. Fans would get used to it.

It’s the inconsistency that gets me. That was a stonewall penalty today by any interpretation of the rules, but the officials decided to just not apply them. It raises too many questions about their integrity for me.

 

[Marty]

It’s the inconsistency that gets me. That was a stonewall penalty today by any interpretation of the rules, but the officials decided to just not apply them. It raises too many questions about their integrity for me.

Sorry I think I've missed that. Which one?

 

[Tucker]

Sorry I think I've missed that. Which one?

Newcastle player charged the ball down with arms in an unnatural position. Handled the ball very clearly. VAR looked at it and simply shrugged it off as “not a clear mistake.”

Shocking really when you think about it.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Sorry I think I've missed that. Which one?

The defender's arms were up at shoulder height, outside of the body, and were moved into the path of the ball. There has never been any iteration of the handball rule where that isn't a stonewall penalty, so the decision was farcical even if we ignore the numerous ridiculously harsh "handballs" that were awarded last season.

 

[Serpico]

This has all probably been said before...
We should embrace VAR. its how its being used is the problem. Last night Pepe dived in the box at 2-1 down and it was clear-no booking. VAR should inform the ref, the replay showed it clearly seconds after. This crap in football will stop if punished regular.

Players need to respect the ref. There should be zero tolerance on petulance, poor tackles, grouping around and back chat. The ref needs not to be pressured by big clubs at home and allowed to be free to do their job. Stop the, Ill give you a few tackles before I consider a yellow card rubbish. Players kicking the ball away after they've chased it and its just gone off-Yellow card for me. Book , book, book, players will soon get the message and stop being fools.

 

[Serpico]

Halsey may not have said it, but the refereeing in this country does smell fishy to me. They can’t be this bad.

The comments are made up unless all the media are in on it. It would have been all over the papers and beyond. Refs are not perfect and have shown some bias thats why we need clear transparent rules that we can all interrupt, so questionable referring is not able to carry on. VAR for assistance on Kane goal was very good but slow. The TV seems to get a quicker result.

 

[hughy]

This has all probably been said before...
We should embrace VAR. its how its being used is the problem. Last night Pepe dived in the box at 2-1 down and it was clear-no booking. VAR should inform the ref, the replay showed it clearly seconds after. This crap in football will stop if punished regular.

I don't understand this at all. Wasn't there a rule brought in before VAR that, in short, stated that anyone seen diving to try and get a penalty awarded in their teams favour will get a match ban? So how come the referee can't penalise him with a yellow card through advise from VAR, and then he gets given a match ban retrospectively?

There are so many sub-rules which I no longer understand.

 

[Serpico]

I don't understand this at all. Wasn't there a rule brought in before VAR that, in short, stated that anyone seen diving to try and get a penalty awarded in their teams favour will get a match ban? So how come the referee can't penalise him with a yellow card through advise from VAR, and then he gets given a match ban retrospectively?

There are so many sub-rules which I no longer understand.

This is the problem. transparency.

The ban is applied when the ref has been successfully deceived by a player, who either wins their side a penalty or gets an opponent sent off. Not sure if it applies to just 'taking a dive' to deceive without a resulting pen. which it should if its not. It may change outside the box-who knows anymore, its all crap. Allowing players to believe they can manipulate the ref by cheating must be stopped and players punished wherever they are on the pitch.

 

[Spurslove]

Does anyone think it would help fans understand WTF was happening if the conversation between the ref and the VAR man could be heard over the public loudspeaker system? I think they have that facility in American 'football'.

.

 

[PCozzie]

Does anyone think it would help fans understand WTF was happening if the conversation between the ref and the VAR man could be heard over the public loudspeaker system? I think they have that facility in American 'football'.

.

In NFL and to a slightly lesser extent rugby, which also uses more extensive communication, there is a culture of not approaching the referee. This means the ref/umpire has the space to talk to on-field assistants or video referees without player interference.

I also think, and this is just my opinion, that fouls in football are more open to discretion and context. The game is more or less constant and decisions are far more open to interpretation than American Football, which tends to more technical offences (which is not surprising, as the intention of the defence is to bring the player down, not simply to win the ball without impeding the player in possession). There would also be no explanation of why the referee *didn't* give a foul, which is just as contentious as why the ref *did* give one.

In short, I think football is too febrile an atmosphere for real-time loudspeaker explanation of decisions that can differ in implementation from match to match and from official to official.

 

[mr ashley]

In NFL and to a slightly lesser extent rugby, which also uses more extensive communication, there is a culture of not approaching the referee. This means the ref/umpire has the space to talk to on-field assistants or video referees without player interference.

I also think, and this is just my opinion, that fouls in football are more open to discretion and context. The game is more or less constant and decisions are far more open to interpretation than American Football, which tends to more technical offences (which is not surprising, as the intention of the defence is to bring the player down, not simply to win the ball without impeding the player in possession). There would also be no explanation of why the referee *didn't* give a foul, which is just as contentious as why the ref *did* give one.

In short, I think football is too febrile an atmosphere for real-time loudspeaker explanation of decisions that can differ in implementation from match to match and from official to official.

Hear this rationale all the time.
Disagree

the idea that football is so different to other sports is such a myth.
There are rules and these are applied by the officials. And on the odd occasion when a decision is ‘subjective’ surely having the ability to hear the reason behind the decision would be an improvement??

if nothing else, it’s absolutely worth trying.

 

[PCozzie]

Hear this rationale all the time.
Disagree

the idea that football is so different to other sports is such a myth.
There are rules and these are applied by the officials. And on the odd occasion when a decision is ‘subjective’ surely having the ability to hear the reason behind the decision would be an improvement??

if nothing else, it’s absolutely worth trying.

That could work if play is actually stopped. The issue is that 50% of the subjective 'decisions' lead to a play-on situation. The hand-ball against Newcastle would never get explained because the ref didn't believe there was offence. But we do, and still would even if the Ref had given us a running commentary as to why he disagreed.

And I really do think football is different to many other sports in how crowds react to things happening on-field. Ref's could explain their rationale until they are blue in the face, but a partisan home crowd isn't going to just accept it. Think how a Liverpool crowd would react to the ref telling them over the tannoy in a match against Man Utd, why he believes Mo Salah dived in the box as the touch wasn't quite enough to make him go down, and so it's not a penalty but a booking. They're not going to just shrug and say: "Yeh la', the ref's got a better view, and Salah does do that a lot". They're just going to scream abuse at him (substitute any team for Liverpool, and any favourite player for Salah).

If anything, I'd rather just go back to pre-VAR and accept that refs simply get things wrong. Just my opinion, others will disagree.

 

[mr ashley]

That could work if play is actually stopped. The issue is that 50% of the subjective 'decisions' lead to a play-on situation. The hand-ball against Newcastle would never get explained because the ref didn't believe there was offence. But we do, and still would even if the Ref had given us a running commentary as to why he disagreed.

And I really do think football is different to many other sports in how crowds react to things happening on-field. Ref's could explain their rationale until they are blue in the face, but a partisan home crowd isn't going to just accept it. Think how a Liverpool crowd would react to the ref telling them over the tannoy in a match against Man Utd, why he believes Mo Salah dived in the box as the touch wasn't quite enough to make him go down, and so it's not a penalty but a booking. They're not going to just shrug and say: "Yeh la', the ref's got a better view, and Salah does do that a lot". They're just going to scream abuse at him (substitute any team for Liverpool, and any favourite player for Salah).

If anything, I'd rather just go back to pre-VAR and accept that refs simply get things wrong. Just my opinion, others will disagree.

I see what you’re saying, I just don’t see why football should be different to any other sport.