Var

[Lundan Cabbie]

We mustn't forget VAR is a work in progress and certainly needs improvement but I'm coming round to the idea.You either accept that the referee is an integral part of the game and accept their decisions without murmur or give them help from technology. The likes of Alan Shearer lambastes VAR and the very next week will crucify a referee for making a decision he disagrees with after he (Shearer) has seen the incident ten times from all angles in slow motion. You can't have it both ways

He did make an excellent point on his Twitter that Var should only be used in clear errors therefore it shouldn't have been a penalty and England should have won the game...

The media have invented this term of "clear and obvious errors" and now expect VAR to deliver on their description but not once in the VAR protocol do these words appear. In the England/Italy incident, the defender trod on the attackers foot which tripped him. Tripping an opponent has always been an offence so i don't understand why some are saying it wasn't a foul. Esmer's view of the need and deliverance of VAR is spot on.

 

[The Doctor]

I thought it was a clear foul and, therefore, a definite penalty. It didn’t take long for the decision to be made. I don’t see what all the fuss is about really.

 

[Aaron D.]

Clubs, and therefore peoples livelihoods, are now so dependent on what happens on the pitch so I am generally in favour of any system that can correct obvious mistakes in key moments of a game. However, the way VAR's is being run at the moment is not what I was hoping for.

With the decision to use VAR being left to either the referee and/or some 4th official up in the stands, I believe the pressure will be on them to review more and more to avoid being pilloried for not reviewing. This in turn will lead to the game increasingly being stop start which is not what anybody wants. I think the decision to review should be left to the clubs, therefore leaving the referee to, well, referee and apply the laws of the game, good or badly .

If VAR is here to stay I would like to see a similar system that tennis and cricket uses and give each club a set number of reviews it can use e.g. one review per half, if review successful then they keep it, if not its gone and they cannot ask for any further reviews until the next half. This should reduce the number of interruptions during a game, takes the pressure of the officials and puts the onus on the club to get the review right and not waste it for when it really matters. This would still leave lots for debate after the game :stout:

Agree about the captain or manager deciding and having a limited number of challenges. There will still be controversy though when challenges have run out. Refs will still get blamed for mistakes and debate on motd will be endless, however, it will limit the breaks in play.