RateTheRef

i have held back judgement on the var subject, but after watching games today its time to offer up something.

vAR is to make it all black/white, thats to say to make the decisions more clear and so that the fans understand the decisions and can have the luxury of replay.

now, ive watched the womens world cup today, and watched as VAR was not used for 3 penalty incidents in the scotland v japan womens game, but yet was used for a stupid use imo when the jamaican keeper moved from her line early in a penalty incident v italy.

going back to the 3 penalty incidents, all 3 could have been given if you are utilising the rules of the game as they have been used up till now in the wwc. scotland were on the wrong end of a VAR decision the other day v england for a use of the hand when etheball hit a defenders hand unintentionally from a cross, today the japan defender delibarately uses her hand to block a flick up of the ball, yet the ref not only declines the penalty cal, but declines to use VAR.
she then follows that up by giving japan a penalty with no use of VAR for an innocuous challenge where the japan attacker went down with little physical contact and gave it despite being not up with play and gave it with not a moments decision time.
the same then happened at the other end and scotland were denied a penalty, denied any var decision and the ref waved them away.

then we have the call of VAR being used to analyze a keeper moving on the line. I mean seriously FFS, ive watched thousands of penalties, and lost count of the amount of times a keeper has moved or moved early, Milans keeper Dida used to do it all the time.
my point is though if you have VAR and have contencious moments in a game WHY NOT USE IT for the sake of clarity. why leave yourself open to debate and criticism when you choose not to use it and get found out to be wrong afterwards.

it seems to me its yet another scenario of the big clubs getting the benefit of VAR while the smaller teams are denied it.

VAR has always applied to penalties and encroachement, etc. - I think you have to have a zero tolerance policy because it is like offside, you are either on or you are not.

Remember that VAR is constantly checking incidents throughout the game to see if it feels a review ought to be recommended, so VAR was in use for all of the incidents you refer to - the officials operating it on the day just didn't that a clear and obvious error had been made.

Remember that VAR is constantly checking incidents throughout the game to see if it feels a review ought to be recommended, so VAR was in use for all of the incidents you refer to - the officials operating it on the day just didn't that a clear and obvious error had been made.

Hmmm ..... so instead of referees on the field who cannot exhibit a degree of consistency, even within a game let alone across all games, with a perception that certain teams get a better deal than others, we have a team of VAR officials (unnecessarily dressed in referees' kit) sat in a room somewhere displaying exactly the same symptoms.

That was not what I was hoping for from "technology", different people making the same "mistakes" from a different place.

Goal line technology has been excellent. Offside verification is promising but I'm not convinced of the exactitude of it with everything hinging on the precise fraction of a second that the line is drawn. Say it takes a fifth of a second to execute a kick, it's often more, a person travelling at just 10 mph will have moved about 3 feet in that time.

I am also not comfortable with assistants not flagging for clear offsides if there's a chance of a goal scoring opportunity.

VAR is going to be like officiating by committee the way that it is going.

in watching the copa america tonight and yet again, VAR is in place, and the ref is ignoring questionable challenges and not using the var to clarify the decision.

another nothing penalty given to italy u21 v spain tonight, a half hearted pull back and the penalty is given, yet they didnt review the scotland handball. sorry this var system is fast becoming farcical. its supposed to eliminate debate over decisions yet all its doing is creating even more discussion, and they dont have the excuse of human error,