I've seen enough to believe it's cock-up rather than conspiracy.
The audio from the Diaz disallowed goal showed the whole thing up as the amateurish mess that most of us already assumed it to be. The clear lack of consistency is down to officials with different levels of (often mediocre) ability left with huge scope for "interpretation".
In the Newcastle vs. Arsenal game if there was an agenda to help Newcastle then the Havertz tackle was the equivalent of an open goal. Maybe VAR not intervening after the Guimaraes assault was influenced by the earlier non-intervention or maybe it was just more bad officiating.
It seems inevitable that VAR will at some point have an AI element to it. Not necessarily a bad thing as it will provide more consistency but realistically it's a long way off so finding some way to drag up the level of the humanoids in the meantime would be great.
What do people mean by the word 'conspiracy' though?
It's not a shadowy enclave located in the Swiss Alps with henchmen wearing 'The man from Milk Tray' Ninja uniforms while Solsjaer drives a golf buggy through vast underground tunnels with sharks chomping in the background.
It may and is likely many reasons some of which are 'innocent' and some less so.
The age of the people involved is a concern. I used to be a very fit 20s person. I'm a 50s bloater now and couldn't hope to even keep up with my past self. Thinking that old blokes can keep up with the rocket-powered top players of today is a joke.
The tech level of those involved in VAR is clearly wanting and their rules and interpretation of the game is quite often suspect. Either they aren't keeping up with play as refs, have unconcious (or concious) bias and maybe like/dislike certain clubs.
That's poor, but would be countered by good training, accountability, review of performance and programmes to find errors and to correct them and then prevent them.
This doesn't appear to happen and the same ref can see the same event three times and give three different outcomes - quite often in the same game.
There is no consistency and there appears to be no drive or plan to achieve it.
We clearly are reffed by certain officials differently than certain other clubs. Certain other clubs are clearly reffed differently than certain other clubs. In many cases, the games are really, really, really close and more often than not, the deadlock is broken by an officials decision. And that's fine. If the decisions are on the whole fair and correct.
Fair and correct decisions seems to be dependant on the club or the team or the player or the manager or the location of the club.
It's easy to pick figures out and prove this statistically. A few Universities and people like Paul Tompkins and other stattos have done just this. You just have to see the opinions of the officials which is in black and white comparing how (say) the English Grealish is treated compared to the North African Salah.
At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter WHAT the reason is. The only thing that should matter is to remove the reason.
If it's training then better training is required. If it's fitness then fitter people are required. If it's bias then unbiased people are required. If it's pressure from clubs our countries or players or managers then punishments and remedial action is required.
All these things can only be done through complete openness. If they were miked up and put their conversations out in real time for all to hear then I think (If they aren't as bent as fuck) they would get a lot of sympathy.
Players make mistakes. Managers make mistakes. It's expected and it's more than fair enough for refs and linos and even VAR to make mistakes. If mistakes are what they are.
The aim should be to get the correct decision each and every single time. If that doesn't happen then the process to fix it should be open and the results should be open.
Dropping someone for a game or two when they come back and do it selectively just again helps no one.
No fans want their club to get shithouse decisions for them every game. I'd say most fans just want to see the game decided by the players and their ability and performance and the tactical prowess of the manager.
Far, far, far too many games are all about the referee and how they changed a game. That's not right. If steps were being taken to fix that then I think we'd all be happier.
At the moment it's like a secret cabal where no one is allowed to pierce the inner sanctum. That's ridiculous. Look how open and fair seeming the refs in rugby are and they have giants of men to order about.
