• The first stage of the forum upgrades has now been completed but they remain in a degraded state and are still being worked on.
    Please read this thread for more details.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.

Lee Mason - VAR


Do you think fans football fans are all of a sudden accept a decision that goes against there team because the ref happens to be mic'd up?
I think if there’s an understanding of the decision then a bit of reasoning will come into play, yes. Some of those decisions in the WC, we had no idea what they were for!
 
Sitting watching rugby just now. You hear the interjections by the video ref and the discussion with the ref. Works perfectly and they get decisions right and quickly.

How can a bigger, wealthier sport like football make such a pig’s ear of it?

The problem is that in football the vast majority of big decisions are contentious. They can literally be argued either way and regularly do so. For every decision that is deemed 'disgraceful' there is another manager / set of fans saying the ref got it right. In rugby there is a culture of sensible rationale where they understand that when a decision is contentious the referee still needs to make a decision and they accept it. In football what happens is that you get an absolute meltdown by those who haven't benefitted from the decision and an absolute deluge of unjustified vitriol heaped on the referee. It's probably what I despise most about the game.

If you miced referees up it would just open them up to more abuse. Can you imagine a scenario where a referee calmly attempts to talk through their decision making process? It would just be an invitation to aggrieved fans and players to further lambast referees for not giving the 50/50 decision in their favour. Can you honestly see an opposing manager listening to the explanation and saying 'ah right you are, that's fair enough then.' Of course they wouldn't.

Football fans need to get used to the idea that most handball decisions and penalty calls are not binary judgements. It's quite reasonable to appreciate that in many circumstances the award of a penalty or a red card can be justifiably deemed to go either way.

The referees are not the problem (most of the time) but rather the toxic culture around attitudes to referees.

My solution would be for referees to strike for a month and tell managers to co - ref the games and see how they get on.
 
Last edited:
I would put a canny whack on, if they were to get rid of VAR for a month, the howls of complaint, over the certainty of dodgy happenings would be massive

i can hear it now, the first offside goal being given
What needs removing are 99% of broadcasters cameras then we’d be back to where we used to be…….none the wiser, but at least the game wouldn’t be taking forever.
 
I’ve totally changed my view on it. Always thought it could be used and be useful. Now I absolutely hate it.

Just looking over a couple of threads from a decade back:









@Matnab, you might be interested in some of these threads from 10-12 years ago (before your time here, I believe) when the debate was raging.
 
What needs removing are 99% of broadcasters cameras then we’d be back to where we used to be…….none the wiser, but at least the game wouldn’t be taking forever.
Never happen. I think it was brought in because of the foreign ownerships and them wanting laws to be “literal” as we see by a toe offside

all the big hitters are foreign owned now so it’s never going away .

it’s won me and cost me a few winners this season and I’m just trying to work out how to play it and it’s mainly by only betting mainly, when games are in play

you might as well bray your head into a brick wall , then asking for it to be taken away
 
The problem is that in football the vast majority of big decisions are contentious. They can literally be argued either way and regularly do so. For every decision that is deemed 'disgraceful' there is another manager / set of fans saying the ref got it right. In rugby there is a culture of sensible rationale where they understand that when a decision is contentious the referee still needs to make a decision and they accept it. In football what happens is that you get an absolute meltdown by those who haven't benefitted from the decision and an absolute deluge of unjustified vitriol heaped on the referee. It's probably what I despise most about the game.

If you miced referees up it would just open them up to more abuse. Can you imagine a scenario where a referee calmly attempts to talk through their decision making process? It would just be an invitation to aggrieved fans and players to further lambast referees for not giving the 50/50 decision in their favour. Can you honestly see an opposing manager listening to the explanation and saying 'ah right you are, that's fair enough then.' Of course they wouldn't.

Football fans need to get used to the idea that most handball decisions and penalty calls are not binary judgements. It's quite reasonable to appreciate that in many circumstances the award of a penalty or a red card can be justifiably deemed to go either way.

The referees are not the problem (most of the time) but rather the toxic culture around attitudes to referees.

My solution would be for referees to strike for a month and tell managers to co - ref the games and see how they get on.
Somebody mentioned respect for the ref and I agree with that. I played (semi) professional rugby and a wrong word to a ref got you marched back ten yards and loads of grief from team mates.

Being a ref in football today is a thankless task. Abuse all round. Needs to stop and the only way is to have a tough approach. Move the free kick ten yards on if someone speaks out of turn. They’ll soon shut up.

Incidentally think Mason has been hung out to dry to hide the faults in the system.
would love to have heard what they were saying on var when they made them shocking decisions last weekend. fans would have been kicking off even more
Or maybe if they were having a proper discussion they’d have reached the right decision?
 
Just looking over a couple of threads from a decade back:









@Matnab, you might be interested in some of these threads from 10-12 years ago (before your time here, I believe) when the debate was raging.

Its great to look back and see how people viewed the onset of technology. I'm actually more interested around the debate relating to fans approaches to officiating and the complete lack of any desire to 'play fair' when it comes to referees. I'm a tourist here but on my clubs forum (Bradford City) the stuff about officiating usually comes from the mindset of a 5 year old ie. Every single decision that goes against us is incorrect. They usually flag up a vaguely similar incident from 8 years ago that doesn't really bare any resemblance to the one in question to moan about 'consistency'. Most of the 'huge injustices' are usually correct decisions. It's generally the same on here.
 
Safc v nufc in the premier and it’s 0-0, when Almoron goes through and scores , which is shown to be offside but no var and it’s given

Safc 0-1nufc ft

Just accept that as one of those things , when safc may go down by a point
 
Its great to look back and see how people viewed the onset of technology. I'm actually more interested around the debate relating to fans approaches to officiating and the complete lack of any desire to 'play fair' when it comes to referees. I'm a tourist here but on my clubs forum (Bradford City) the stuff about officiating usually comes from the mindset of a 5 year old ie. Every single decision that goes against us is incorrect. They usually flag up a vaguely similar incident from 8 years ago that doesn't really bare any resemblance to the one in question to moan about 'consistency'. Most of the 'huge injustices' are usually correct decisions. It's generally the same on here.

'I'm a fan, of course I'm not going to be objective' is about the best you can hope from those people.
 
Back
Top