Video technology (VAR) in football

It’s been generally very successful in Rugby, Cricket, and Tennis, so it should hopefully be just as successful in football. These sports, just like NFL, do have natural stoppages alot more than we have in football. Even throw-ins don’t really offer much of a break in football, so I hope it doesn’t break up the game too much. If it does I’d be in favour of removing it as football has to be flowing.

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Tbf the technology used in Tennis is already in use in football which is goal line technology. It serves a very different purpose than VAR will.

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Using terms like mental gymnastics explaining peoples concerns is far from just being positive. Its typical disregarding of anything that doesnt comply with his agenda.

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Not disregarding. I’ve been engaged in this discussion for years now on this forum. Simply put it’s the term that best describes what I’m seeing. There is something about video technology that offends some, or that makes people feel naturally averse to it, and that seems to give people motivation to find all kinds of reasons/use all kinds of mental gymnastics to make it seem bad, when the simplest conclusion is: it’s a clearly positive reform.

I honestly can’t believe people are complaining today about how it “stopped the flow of the game”. I was fully prepared to have the match stopped for a minute or two while they made sure that a key decision was made correctly. Imagine if you felt like you’ve been fouled in the 90th minute and you don’t want them to consult the VAR to see if you won a penalty because it would “stop the flow of the game”.

We can’t on one hand slam the referees for making shocking decisions then complain when they attempt to rectify these issues.

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Of all the sports that employ video technology, you can make a strong, strong case that football is the one where referee decisions most directly influence the result.

It is a far far lesser evil to disrupt ever so slightly the flow of the game in order to have a better accuracy with refereeing decisions.

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I will concede that I see why some would think this implementation would be good. I personally dont, but there is no way you can state that its clearly a positive reform at this stage.

Doubts about the way it impacts the flow of the game are real. Stoppages looked really poor. Fair enough that we tolerate this for a while until they perfect its implementation but they need to be careful with this.

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I think it could become a major problem if we get into really petty things, like seeing whether or not its a corner or a goal kick.

But in the match today, the two points where it was stopped were moments that were obviously game changing depending on the call made, so getting the right decision made outweighs a brief stoppage in my opinion.

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I’ve made this argument before but there are always stoppages in football when there is a contentious decision.

If a ref gives a blatant non penalty or non red card the defending team will spend 60 seconds around the ref waving their hands in the air and swearing at him anyway.

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Didn’t see the game but just watched the two var decisions. How did they restart the game after the Chelsea pen claim out of interest?

They just continued the game. Think it was our goal kick

Ah, it wasn’t clear from what I watched the ball had gone out, thought the ref had stopped it. :slight_smile:

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Tbh it was weird waiting the attacking move out for VAR to be used. No really major decision to be made today, still could be sped up a little though.

Implementation was a bit disruptive but that’s to be expected, this has never been done before and developing the systems to make it efficient will take time.

VAR has got to happen, too many crucial decisions are gotten wrong without it for the situation to continue. It’s just a case of finding the right processes.

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The only way VAR would interrupt a game so much so that it’s flow will break down or the game’s length will extend to more than 5 minutes than it’s usual running time is if players start abusing the system by questioning every official decision and request to put it under VAR review.

I think it would be best if VAR is initiated by the players or the manager and each team has 3 requests per game. I don’t think a single team will ever need more than 3 reviews per game, I can’t recall a game so one-sidedly unbalanced in terms of referee decisions so that 4 or more major decisions were incorrectly given against the same side.

Not sure the reasons why a majority of players want to scrap VAR in the Bundesliga but thought this stat was interesting

Surely 47% is less than a majority.

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Yeah that means 53% want it.

Or that there are 11% undecided/didn’t give an answer which is the case here.

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