Topic: VAR! Video Assistant Referee & Shite Referees in General

[Trendisnotdestiny]

Liverpool -6

Overturns: 16
Rejected overturns: 2
Leading to goals for: 0
Disallowed goals for: 7
Leading to goals against: 3
Disallowed goals against: 2
Net goal score: -8
Subjective decisions for: 3
Subjective decisions against: 5
Net subjective score: -2
Penalties for / against: 0 / 3

Well out Killie.   There is another category.  Time taken to make decision - it has been my view in watching that calls going for us (get scrutinized in various ways) - seemingly more scrutiny than calls for us anywhere on the pitch (specifically handball differentials, offsides calls, yellow and red card punishable offenses, and the data you mention).

When I watch City play --- it is quick, decision is made (Mariner was awful today for City) and then it over - they move on.

Kloppo would never say this --- but who has been punished the most by this system?  Us     Who has benefitted from this type of refereeing?  Idk but prolly City

Once they did not get a ban in the ECL -- I bet they went to the mattresses.

[4pool]

Common sense and IFAB VAR do not equate.

[Machae]

You cant even be certain when it left Trents foot, so how can anyone say its offside with no margin of error.

Imperfect result on an unknown set of variables

[FlashGordon]

Love how we fucked over that twat only giving 5mins added time, should have been at least 10 but it fucked Villa in the end not us. 

I've never been happier about something in a game in my life 

[FlashGordon]

Worst decision all year was Everton's goal against Palace. Calvert-Lewin was clearly offside when Sigurdsson shot, clearly went to/played the ball, and yet no offside call given. Either none of the match officials knew the rules or someone had a lot of money on Everton to score at least one goal in that game. Not sure which is more possible, which says a lot in itself.

[free_at_last]

I don't know why but I was kind of hoping the reffing bias might get a reset after the international break.
The VAR offside was the obvious talking point but the issue that continues right on is the soft free kicks given against us to break up our play.
I was watching the game with my son and I lost count of the times we looked at each other and said WTF! when the manchester fanboy gave a free kick against us - our players even look incredulously at the ref for some of them - it is happening every game but goes under the radar compared to higher profile VAR incidents , even though it has a cumulative handicapping effect on our game.
I refuse to believe that we are a dirty team. We had 67% possession but committed 16 fouls to Villa's 11.

[GreatEx]

Last night's call was clearly awful but arguing over the existence or not of a pro/anti-[insert club name] conspiracy spreads disunity when fans should be united over the destruction of football as a spectacle. Such is the tide of decision-making against LFC this season that I've barely had the chance to assess whether my disdain is due to the nature of VAR, or simply bitterness at my own misfortune, but when we finally got a BSAP (BullShit ArmPit) decision in our favour recently (Werner, I think) I didn't take any joy from it and still remarked "this is killing the game". So that's where the main issue lies for me: the time wasting, the deflation of atmosphere, the random geometric fuckwittery. I reckon they only get away with it because there's no crowds. When they return, I want to see furious protests, demonstrations, riots, toddler throwing contests... whatever it takes to get the beautiful, imperfect game back. I want VAR scrapped, but will accept its presence if a strict 5-second limit is applied, ie. the average interval between a player ripping off his shirt and sprinting to the corner flag, only to turn around, throw his head back and howl in anguish.

[ep1987]

After spending time checking whether the Villa defender touched the ball the drawing of the lines was very rushed.

The knee was marked as being in line with the heel which is clearly wrong (not sure if this was poor protocol or implementation). Same with Jota's arm which definitely wouldn't be level with the outside of his foot. Combined with the frame rate issue we've ended up with binary decisions being made via very imprecise means.

I think the three obvious fixes are: (A) Use the feet for offsides outside of the box (20 yard headers are pretty rare i think), otherwise foot, knee and head (no t-shirt rule). (B) Whatever the mean estimated error is (they can field test this) give that as a benefit of the doubt to the attacker (so a slightly thicker line for the defender). (C) The VAR should mark all possible points of reference for the defence, then same for the attacking player and then when they 'hit enter' the computer generates the horizontal lines (to prevent any unconscious biases).

[12C]

Goal technology works nobody says otherwise.

VAR does and can work if you have people working it correctly.

Imo cheats are operating it.

Cough cough.
Goaline technology works...
Except when it didn’t last season and prevented a goal being given when the naked eye said otherwise.
And Villa stayed up

[ChrisLFCKOP]

I don't know why but I was kind of hoping the reffing bias might get a reset after the international break.
The VAR offside was the obvious talking point but the issue that continues right on is the soft free kicks given against us to break up our play.
I was watching the game with my son and I lost count of the times we looked at each other and said WTF! when the manchester fanboy gave a free kick against us - our players even look incredulously at the ref for some of them - it is happening every game but goes under the radar compared to higher profile VAR incidents , even though it has a cumulative handicapping effect on our game.
I refuse to believe that we are a dirty team. We had 67% possession but committed 16 fouls to Villa's 11.

The one where the villa player jumped felt a slight touch and then fell on the floor...   The milner challenge where he clearly gets the ball very little contact on the villa player and he just screams gets the free kick.  The only player for us I have seen do this lately is Jota, need to do more of it because the shite refs are not reffing the game they are reffing reactions. 

Never seem to get 50/50 either and we should get at half of them.

Been saying this for the last couple of seasons, opposition players just throw themselves to the ground with or without the touch, scream and get the foul.  Bored of getting 20mins into a game and saying to mates we ain't getting a decision again today.

[Ghost Town]

The "its corruption" and "the refs are out to get us, and us alone" is clearly an embrassing shout to make.

You're the only one seemingly embarrassed so maybe, you know...

Rather than being embarrassed on behalf of everyone, and wringing your hands, why not try and understand what it is people are saying? And look at the evidence. There doesn't need to be proper, structural corruption for individual officials to pick on a team they see as an easy victim, a team that is respectful and will not set the media hound dogs on the officials (like some teams do) and which is largely derided by everyone else so that their misfortune will be welcomed as top bantz and entertainment.

And one team getting particualrly harsh treatrment does not mean other teams won't also get incorrect decisions and even harsh treatment. It's so simplistic to say 'X got a bad call as well so therefore there's nothing wrong'. 

[Ghost Town]

They do from wide free kicks when a teammate gets a slight flick on. Their head could be beyond the ball but their feet are behind the defensive line.

Does it matter? Even if a player's head is 'offside' while his feet aren't, so what? Good luck to him. It's no different to a taller player having an advantage over a shorter one. The point is that the player won't be gaining an advantage by standing in an offside position. That's what offside was created to prevent. Standing or feet position.

[Ghost Town]

Should we do the same with goal line technology. Just freeze the frame and if it isn't obviously over the line then it isn't.

Not comparable at all, as you must well know. A goal is a goal, a finished product. The very core of what football is about. It pays to be millimetre accurate about whether a goal is legitimate or not as football is a low-scoring game, meaning goals are by definition rare events and each goal is highly valuable.

Offisde is merely to prevent meaningful advantage being taken by attackers based on where they are standing. It's about fair play more than anything. It's basically saying "come on chaps, be fair about where you stand or else this game won't work properly, you might as well all stand next to the keeper." That's how it came about. There was no offside in the earliest versions of football and then it was brought in once those standardising it realised that although football prided itself on being a free-flowing game, rather than a positional, territorial game, something nevertheless had to be done about where players stood in order to not make a mockery of that free flow.

Offside has nothing to do with millimeters, it was created, and should be, a 'rule of thumb' measure. It's predicated on the simple idea that if a player is stealing an advantage by where he is positioned then it should be bloody obvious that he is via a quick check. If it's not obvious then it's not a meaningful advantage.

What they are doing here with lines and millimeters is not in the spirit of why the offisde rule was created in the first place.

Any "solution" that involves different ways of drawing lines is just pointless.

If they have to have this nonsense, just freeze the frame. If you can't immediately see the player is clearly offside, then he's not. And if that offends some pedantic gobshites who want everything measured to the millimetre, all the better.

Exactly

[Fromola]

I don't know why but I was kind of hoping the reffing bias might get a reset after the international break.
The VAR offside was the obvious talking point but the issue that continues right on is the soft free kicks given against us to break up our play.
I was watching the game with my son and I lost count of the times we looked at each other and said WTF! when the manchester fanboy gave a free kick against us - our players even look incredulously at the ref for some of them - it is happening every game but goes under the radar compared to higher profile VAR incidents , even though it has a cumulative handicapping effect on our game.
I refuse to believe that we are a dirty team. We had 67% possession but committed 16 fouls to Villa's 11.

The fouls against us are because opponents are just throwing themselves down at any contact to stop the counterpress.

[rob1966]

Offside has nothing to do with millimeters, it was created, and should be, a 'rule of thumb' measure. It's predicated on the simple idea that if a player is stealing an advantage by where he is positioned then it should be bloody obvious that he is via a quick check. If it's not obvious then it's not a meaningful advantage.

What they are doing here with lines and millimeters is not in the spirit of why the offisde rule was created in the first place.
Exactly

What the dickheads have done is taken the law literally, rather than what you say. It needs rewording to something along the lines of "being in a position to gain an unfair advantage", that way officials don't need to draw fucking lines all over the place, they can just look. Bamford, earlier in the season, pointing where he wanted to receive the ball is not an unfair advantage, but by literal interpretation of the law, he's offside. The PGMOL, as we all know, are fucking idiots.

On a side note, this is why we needed VAR in the first place.

[Guz-kop]

What the dickheads have done is taken the law literally, rather than what you say. It needs rewording to something along the lines of "being in a position to gain an unfair advantage", that way officials don't need to draw fucking lines all over the place, they can just look. Bamford, earlier in the season, pointing where he wanted to receive the ball is not an unfair advantage, but by literal interpretation of the law, he's offside. The PGMOL, as we all know, are fucking idiots.

On a side note, this is why we needed VAR in the first place.

They've taken it literally and want to work in millimeter margins but in situations where they've dropped a clanger eg van dijk injury or push on Mane against Leicester, they stick their head in the sand and trot out the whole "clear and obvious" mantra. It's the latter that frustrates me the most. I could handle the offsides, weird handball decisions and shit penalties also if their views on what can and can't be intervened on weren't so blinkered leading to making huge mistakes in games otherwise

[clinical]

I'll say it again for the millionth time, its an easy solution.

They need to change the rule to the position of the feet, end of story. whats driving people crazy is they look at a position that they "know" and feel by instinct of a lifetimes following the game is on and they are being told its offside by a millimetre by some line drawn to an impossible to judge shirt sleeve or pointing finger or something. its fucking stupid.

the position of your feet will always fairly measure your distance to the goal line. if you look at Bobbys goal, Jotas arm is level/offside by a millimetre m,ybe but his FEET are a good foot onside. Hes fucking clearly and obviously further away from the goal line than the defender, and he looks that way to every single body even Dermit Gallager who can only say 'well its the rules as we have them."  Well change the rule.

Never ever ever should anybody be called offside for pointing where he wants the ball as he starts a run a yard on. complete insanity. The feet wont lie and its measurable to hawkeye proportions. make a rule that the line is x pixels wide on a fiven screen and inside x a tie goes to the runner and measure the forward feet and you have no more onside goals being called off and people will stop rioting in the streets and or not watching the shite any more. 

same rule. minor tweak. Big difference.

It should be feet. But it's not perfect if the furthest foot forward is in the air. They will manage to mess all that up too.

[free_at_last]

The one where the villa player jumped felt a slight touch and then fell on the floor...   The milner challenge where he clearly gets the ball very little contact on the villa player and he just screams gets the free kick.  The only player for us I have seen do this lately is Jota, need to do more of it because the shite refs are not reffing the game they are reffing reactions. 

Never seem to get 50/50 either and we should get at half of them.

Been saying this for the last couple of seasons, opposition players just throw themselves to the ground with or without the touch, scream and get the foul.  Bored of getting 20mins into a game and saying to mates we ain't getting a decision again today.

One of those Milner incidents was when Luiz(after another of those free kicks given for phantom contact by Milner) took 3 minutes and 50 seconds to sit down , asking for attention, then a full on discussion on the pitch followed by a non-urgent chat with the villa medical team at the touchline before deciding to continue.....then they allowed 3 minutes injury time at half time so that all the other stoppages, including goal celebrations took MINUS 50 seconds.
 These PGMOL morons can't do anything right and are a laughing stock.

[rob1966]

The one where the villa player jumped felt a slight touch and then fell on the floor...   The milner challenge where he clearly gets the ball very little contact on the villa player and he just screams gets the free kick.  The only player for us I have seen do this lately is Jota, need to do more of it because the shite refs are not reffing the game they are reffing reactions. 

Never seem to get 50/50 either and we should get at half of them.

Been saying this for the last couple of seasons, opposition players just throw themselves to the ground with or without the touch, scream and get the foul.  Bored of getting 20mins into a game and saying to mates we ain't getting a decision again today.

The lack of crowds is making this easier, you can clearly hear the scream as the bullet slams into the player. I'm sure its only really been a thing since Fernandes signed for the Mancs, I don't remember players screaming as much as that cheat does. Ederson did it against Dortmund the other night too.

[Jm55]

You're the only one seemingly embarrassed so maybe, you know...

Rather than being embarrassed on behalf of everyone, and wringing your hands, why not try and understand what it is people are saying? And look at the evidence. There doesn't need to be proper, structural corruption for individual officials to pick on a team they see as an easy victim, a team that is respectful and will not set the media hound dogs on the officials (like some teams do) and which is largely derided by everyone else so that their misfortune will be welcomed as top bantz and entertainment.

And one team getting particualrly harsh treatrment does not mean other teams won't also get incorrect decisions and even harsh treatment. It's so simplistic to say 'X got a bad call as well so therefore there's nothing wrong'.

I definitely agree that individual referees are at time influenced and give decisions based on who the teams are rather than the nature of the decision, that’s always been the case and its y Fergsuon was very good at manipulating, at the end of the day whilst you have individuals making subjective calls, this will always be a possibility, when you then decide to get a group of pathetic bellends as those individuals then you increase the chances of that happening. It’s worth noting that VAR is also subjective and in the case of, for example, Firmino’s goal yesterday, the VAR can opt to not use the tech and just give the goal so there is an element of subjectivity in it - it’s not hard to see that being used for a variety of reasons that it shouldn’t be used for, ie the VAR deciding he wants to be the centre of attention, the VAR having an issue with the team involved (Coote springs to mind, etc etc.)

That, as you touch on, isn’t corruption, it’s pathetic individuals with pathetic agendas who should be getting reprimanded when they can’t explain why they’ve done something (I suspect that usually they’re not even asked to explain which is the issue.) the quote that the lad you replied to specifically referenced corruption and for that, I’d be interested to see what the evidence is. City, for example, have been fucked over by VAR on a couple of occasions both domestically and in Europe (seemingly always against Spurs, for some reason.) As I’ve said before we’ve gotten away with a few that haven’t been reviewed ourselves.

People direct their anger at the wrong target, it should be aimed at the implantation of VAR, which, if you got it right would remove a lot of the human error from it.

[Zimagic]

but when we finally got a BSAP (BullShit ArmPit) decision in our favour recently (Werner, I think) I didn't take any joy from it and still remarked "this is killing the game".

That was a shocking decision too.

Going back to a previous comment about implementation in other leagues & the CL, there's no huge outcry when goals like these aren't given as offside because fans, players & clubs are sensible enough to know that if it's so close you need to measure it, it's level or advantage to the attacker. No one is screaming blue murder because a shoulder was 10cm ahead of a knee on the other side of the pitch and a goal was given.

This season is too far gone to be making changes now but next year this millimetre BS needs to be binned.

[Lusty]

All these people saying it's not the technology, it's the people using it... You're disallowing goals for 2mm offside when the technology is not accurate to within 30cm. You could have some genetically engineered super ref running the thing and it would still give the wrong decision because the technology is fundamentally flawed.

[rob1966]

All these people saying it's not the technology, it's the people using it... You're disallowing goals for 2mm offside when the technology is not accurate to within 30cm. You could have some genetically engineered super ref running the thing and it would still give the wrong decision because the technology is fundamentally flawed.

It's not the tech, its not Skynet making its own decisions, its not self aware, its just exists and it gets used by humans. If the tech is not accurate to within 30cm, then only dickheads ie the PGMOL and Reilly specifically, will attempt to use it for decisions down to 2cm. I don't blame my phone because it can't process at the same speed as a super computer, it's not designed to do that, so I don't expect it to do it, so you cannot blame the tech when an idiot is using it incorrectly.

[clinical]

I'd rather it was fully automated rather than controlled by our refs. Least that would remove any potential bias and inconsistencies.

[CraigDS]

All these people saying it's not the technology, it's the people using it... You're disallowing goals for 2mm offside when the technology is not accurate to within 30cm. You could have some genetically engineered super ref running the thing and it would still give the wrong decision because the technology is fundamentally flawed.

Thought it was accurate to 5cm of used correctly?

[Lusty]

Thought it was accurate to 5cm of used correctly?

I think that's the accuracy of the lines, but doesn't account for the frame rate issue. 30cm was just one example as well, could be higher depending on the pace of the attacker, and even then I think it assumes the defender is stationary and not stepping out.

Even 5cm I would argue means it's not fit for purpose.

[Legs]

Cough cough.
Goaline technology works...
Except when it didn’t last season and prevented a goal being given when the naked eye said otherwise.
And Villa stayed up

I agree they hadnt set the goal up correctly if you believe that.

VAR though should have seen it tthough and you have to wonder why they didnt !

I think the vast majority of fans/players/pundits do believe it works.

[Devon Red]

Put aside all the talk of bias for a moment. Trying my hardest to be neutral and giving maximum benefit of the doubt, I still can't see that as offside. They are level. There is no advantage, beyond the natural and fair advantage of the forward timing his run. Even after the lines are drawn and redrawn they are still level. I'm baffled.

[Lusty]

It's not the tech, its not Skynet making its own decisions, its not self aware, its just exists and it gets used by humans. If the tech is not accurate to within 30cm, then only dickheads ie the PGMOL and Reilly specifically, will attempt to use it for decisions down to 2cm. I don't blame my phone because it can't process at the same speed as a super computer, it's not designed to do that, so I don't expect it to do it, so you cannot blame the tech when an idiot is using it incorrectly.

I don't think that's the point though. What I'm getting at is that the technology will never work, regardless of who is using it. 

Yes, a human had to decide to use it in the first place, but the point is that there's no solution to this apart from to stop using it. Thicker lines, drawing from the feet etc, none of this solves the fundamental problem.

[CraigDS]

But nothing will be 100% accurate.

Not going back to linos making a call. Not VAR. Not 2 linos. Etc etc.

I think the aim should be to find the most accurate method which doesn’t hold up play for ages every time and isn’t not picking over mm’s or leaving so much to the judgement call of a single hidden VAR.

I do think that means video assistance, but it needs to evolve from this initial system into something more acceptable in both its operation and the decision making.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Last night's call was clearly awful but arguing over the existence or not of a pro/anti-[insert club name] conspiracy spreads disunity when fans should be united over the destruction of football as a spectacle. Such is the tide of decision-making against LFC this season that I've barely had the chance to assess whether my disdain is due to the nature of VAR, or simply bitterness at my own misfortune, but when we finally got a BSAP (BullShit ArmPit) decision in our favour recently (Werner, I think) I didn't take any joy from it and still remarked "this is killing the game". So that's where the main issue lies for me: the time wasting, the deflation of atmosphere, the random geometric fuckwittery. I reckon they only get away with it because there's no crowds. When they return, I want to see furious protests, demonstrations, riots, toddler throwing contests... whatever it takes to get the beautiful, imperfect game back. I want VAR scrapped, but will accept its presence if a strict 5-second limit is applied, ie. the average interval between a player ripping off his shirt and sprinting to the corner flag, only to turn around, throw his head back and howl in anguish.

I think you're right there mate.

I can already see it myself where, when we score, barely anyone will even cheer. Everyone is so convinced that every goal we score will be reviewed with the aim of disallowing it for *something* that what's the point of cheering or jumping up only to look like a dickhead when these cheating twats deny yet another perfectly good goal.

I've said it all along. The problem we have is that Riley and his band of cheating gobshites are unaccountable to anyone. If you even ask a question as a manager you get fined or banned. No one in the media is prepared to address it and fans are only arsed if the bullshit fucks their club over. Most often Liverpool have been fucked over in every game - a few non-British media outfits and a few blogs have picked up on it, but it's seen as 'sour grapes' or 'fans moaning'

But when it's Anfield and the crowd see an absolutely fine goal disallowed yet again by a cheating shitbag in Stockley Park, I can see things getting ugly very quickly.

[rob1966]

I don't think that's the point though. What I'm getting at is that the technology will never work, regardless of who is using it. 

Yes, a human had to decide to use it in the first place, but the point is that there's no solution to this apart from to stop using it. Thicker lines, drawing from the feet etc, none of this solves the fundamental problem.

Just don't use it where its not fit to be used. RL judges offside on kicks by what the referee sees with his eyes, why does football insist on lines? Its like my kids asked, does a fella with a big cock or a woman with big tits get flagged offside due to the protrusions?

All I ever wanted from VAR was the officials to be able to say "I'm not sure, let me have a better look". Microanalysing is not what it should ever be used for. Our disallowed goal yesterday, if VAR is used correctly, then the lineo has the option of allowing play to go on or flagging. If they think its tight, they should have the confidence to let it run but ask the ref for a review, then a quick look with the eyes, yeah that looks fine or nah he's off, all this adding lines is utter bollocks. No official, watching that back, gives Jota offside and that is how it should be.

I just don't get how footy can fuck it up so spectacularly when sports like RL have used it for over 25 years?

I only saw this on MOTD this morning, but as when Bobby had a goal disallowed at Villa Park, I think the officials manipulated the lines to make Jota offside.

[Lusty]

But nothing will be 100% accurate.

Not going back to linos making a call. Not VAR. Not 2 linos. Etc etc.

I think the aim should be to find the most accurate method which doesn’t hold up play for ages every time and isn’t not picking over mm’s or leaving so much to the judgement call of a single hidden VAR.

I do think that means video assistance, but it needs to evolve from this initial system into something more acceptable in both its operation and the decision making.

I think I agree with this to an extent. Nothing is 100% accurate, and neither should that be the goal like you say.

What we wanted from VAR was to stop the howlers. Sterling against City. If Liverpool concede a goal and we later determine through some alien technology that it was 2mm offside, I don't think anyone cares.

It should be linesman's call unless a quick naked eye replay shows he got it obviously wrong. Stop pretending that this technology is going to give a more accurate answer than that.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

I remember it wasn't so very long ago that 'daylight' between the attacker and defender was needed.

The problem isn't VAR. The problem is that the stats point to exactly what they are doing. You can argue about decisions, but when you look at the weight of disallowed goals, 50/50 decisions and possession to fouls ratio then you can no longer hide.

You can't disguise the results of the maths and the figures produced. It literally doesn't add up.

[RyanBabel19]

Do they have cameras along the sidelines that keep up with play?

Always thought the easiest way to judge these things would be with an actual angle of the movement of the players in line with the play. Seems odd to always have to go off something that's not in line with play, you wouldn't want a lino judging play from a few yards away so why judge things like offside that way with cameras?

[Jm55]

Interesting article on ESPN about the introduction of semi-automated offside;


The video assistant referee (VAR) and the technology used in deciding offside calls around the world have come under plenty of criticism in recent years, but could that all be about to change?


Offside decisions may soon be "semi-automated" by using Artificial Intelligence to map players and make instant decisions. Arsene Wenger, who is now FIFA's chief of football development, has said he is hopeful it will be ready for next year's World Cup in Qatar.

We're not there yet, and extensive trials of the technology are still needed, but anything that returns the game to how it used to be is welcomed and semi-automation is clearly a vast improvement on VAR offside as is stands today. Here's what it's all about.

What is semi-automated offside?

Sweden-based company ChyronHego is leading the development using its Emmy Award-winning optical tracking system.

It is Artificial Intelligence-based technology that uses limb-tracking and automated ball detection to create three-dimensional models of a player's position instantly.

Solutions to improve the accuracy of the kick point include tracking data using sensor technology from camera systems, while a player's skeleton will be modelled to identify which part of a player's body is farthest forward.

It will produce:

- accurate kick point and ball detection
- tracking using sensor technology and video data
- skeletal modeling precise to tip of a player's boot


ChyronHego technology aims to accurately track both players and ball position.
ChyronHego
How will it work?

The VAR will be told almost instantly that a player is in an offside position. The VAR should be able to determine very quickly if this player is active in an offside position, or not involved in the play. If offside is confirmed, the assistant will be notified within three to five seconds, via a red light on their watch, to raise the flag.

The only exception is when the VAR may need to assess whether a player has been interfering in play, such as being in the line of the goalkeeper's sight. This may cause a small delay to confirming an offside decision.

Why does VAR offside need to change?

Firstly, selecting the exact point the ball is touched by the player who is passing cannot be determined accurately because of the frame rate of TV cameras used across all major leagues.

And there are other issues. The VAR manually selects the offside point on both defender and attacker, which is inconsistent and even the same VAR could make a marginally different decision if calculating a second time.

Plotting players with 3D imaging on a 2D screen cannot be exact, while fans often simply do not accept the result due to the parallax on the 2D image. Only the Premier League has shared the line-drawing process through broadcasters, which has only served to cause more controversy.

The time taken to judge offside, in some cases in excess of four minutes for complex decisions, adds further frustration.

All in all, supporters don't really trust the process.


Patrick Bamford was ruled offside by his arm for Leeds at Crystal Palace.
Premier League
So, why does semi-automation things better?

Well, it will:

- Remove delayed flags by an assistant
- Provide a near-instant decision
- Remove almost all VAR delays on offside

Perhaps most importantly, this would mean the end of the delayed offside flag. No more will you see play continue for an extended period, only for the flag to finally go up after the ball has entered the goal or the attacking move has ended.

Offside decisions will be instant, in most cases the flag will be raised before a goal is scored. In any others, the decision would be so quick it would feel just like it used to be before VAR came into the game.

"Will semi-automated offside lead to a removal of the delayed flag for offside? The answer to that would be almost certainly yes," said David Elleray, technical director of the IFAB. "It should remove the uncertainty that fans currently hate. Is he onside? Can I celebrate? Is it a goal?"

These factors create a powerful change -- whereby a goal being disallowed by a noticeable VAR decision will be extremely rare. Goals will still be disallowed for offside through VAR, but the decision would take place in the background and fans shouldn't even notice it's there.

- How VAR decisions have affected every Premier League club

So, fans can celebrate goals again?

In the Premier League this season there have been 100 VAR overturns, a third of which have involved offside. Of the 30 goals disallowed, 23 have been for offside. With those removed, VAR would have disallowed only seven goals in 300 matches.

But that only scratches the surface. All 797 goals and 120 penalty decisions (other than those that come from a corner kick, of course) in the Premier League have had to be checked for offside. And that can lead to a long delay while a decision is made -- even if merely confirming a goal. With the new technology, that all ends.

"On average, the time we have to wait is around 70 seconds, sometimes 1 min 20 seconds, sometimes a little bit longer when the situation is very difficult to appreciate," Wenger told FIFA's Living Football TV. "It is so important because we see many celebrations are cancelled after that for marginal situations and that's why I believe it is a very important step."

No longer would the first thought in a fan's mind need to be the fear of a goal being disallowed or subject to a lengthy check.

"Semi-autonomous offside would be a real step forward," said Mark Bullingham, CEO at the English Football Association. "Everyone recognises that the fan experience is negatively impacted by having to wait for the confirmation that a goal has been scored. If you have a scenario where you have semi-autonomous offside, where the assistant always knows whether players are offside, they can make an instant decision that doesn't need to be referred, that would be a step forwards. We're always looking to improve the fan experience."


VAR offside can produce a lengthy delay to play.
Adam Davy - Pool/Getty Images
There must be some negatives?

Better technology will naturally be more precise, and fans already hate the marginal offside decisions. So a balance must be struck between technology and decision-making.

"It will spot all offsides, even smaller than the one we are spotting today with the current technology," said Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA referees' committee. "So it would be more accurate, and ironically we would have more marginal offsides that could be detected. It's a matter related to the spirit of football."

FIFA is also exploring better visualisation of marginal decisions, and it could be that offside is only applied if the result can clearly be shown using graphics.

Great, when will semi-automated offside be ready?

The technology is one of the primary objectives of FIFA's Working Group of Innovation Excellence, aiming for implementation at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Successful offline tests were held at the Club World Cup events in 2019 and 2021, but the development process has been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

"We had two matches as a trial during the Club World Cup recently," said Collina. "They were very successful but we're still at quite an early stage. But the outcome is clear: It reduces a lot of the time needed for a decision."

The aim is still to have it in place at the World Cup, which starts in November 2022, but time could be against FIFA.

Domestic leagues want to use the improved technology, too. Hopes to have it implemented for the start of 2022-23 are fading, with the latter stages of the Champions League that season, and in full from 2023-24, looking more realistic.

Why is Wenger talking about automated offside?

Arsene Wenger wants the offside decision to go straight from the technology to the linesman, and cut out the VAR,

"The semi-automated goes first to the VAR who signals it to the linesman. We, and especially me, I'm pushing very hard to have the automated offsides, which means straight away the signal goes to the linesman," Wenger said.

However, removing the role of the VAR raises issues. How does the linesman know which player has been identified as offside by the technology? Being told a player is in an offside position does not mean that player is active for offside.

FIFA and The IFAB are have made semi-automated offside their preferred method.

[CraigDS]

Posted yesterday (or Fri) I think that mate.

[Lusty]

I remember it wasn't so very long ago that 'daylight' between the attacker and defender was needed.

The problem isn't VAR. The problem is that the stats point to exactly what they are doing. You can argue about decisions, but when you look at the weight of disallowed goals, 50/50 decisions and possession to fouls ratio then you can no longer hide.

You can't disguise the results of the maths and the figures produced. It literally doesn't add up.

The problem IS VAR though. Even if the officials do everything right VAR will still give incorrect decisions. And the margin for error will normally favour the defenders.

The fact that our officials are all some combination of incompetent and biased shouldn't distract from the fact that the process doesn't work anyway.

[Ratboy3G]

Put aside all the talk of bias for a moment. Trying my hardest to be neutral and giving maximum benefit of the doubt, I still can't see that as offside. They are level. There is no advantage, beyond the natural and fair advantage of the forward timing his run. Even after the lines are drawn and redrawn they are still level. I'm baffled.

This is how I feel about it, I just don't think it was offside and I'm struggling to see how it was given.

On the wider issue of poor refereeing (and that's what it is, VAR is just a convenient scapegoat), there were some bizarre decisions yesterday. Watkins could and perhaps should have been sent off, but I think that they could have easily been given a penalty for the Trent/El Ghazi incident in the second half so I guess that 'evens out' as they say, also Fab and Milner were both booked for good tackles.
I think that it's important to call out shite refereeing when we win, because it just looks like sour grapes if we only do it when we lose. Likewise we can't only moan about decisions going against us and in the case of Trent he had his arms around the Villa lad and challenged him from behind. I'm not saying that I think it should be a penalty, but that under the rules it probably was and definitely would have wanted it given if the roles were reversed.
VAR should have brought in consistency, but it hasn't. I also think the implementation is wrong, but I'm pretty sure that we all think that. Refs shouldn't be scared to be wrong and should use it to their advantage, we'd all love a second look at things so they should embrace it. They are human and make mistakes, if they and the FA accepted that we would all respect them more.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

The problem IS VAR though. Even if the officials do everything right VAR will still give incorrect decisions. And the margin for error will normally favour the defenders.

The fact that our officials are all some combination of incompetent and biased shouldn't distract from the fact that the process doesn't work anyway.

50/50 decisions and possession/fouls ratio and touches in the area/penalties ratio aren't things that you can cover up once you have enough data.

In the short-to-medium term, yeah, you can argue and hide any data. But over time, the stats make interesting reading. There have been several articles of late that have addressed this (Most notably the number crunching that TT has been doing)