VAR in Scottish football???

It’s pish!

Wait until someone in world football gets it right and then copy their framework.

 

Well at the moment offside is offside and everybody and their granny is up in arms when the rule is applied, so if folk are not happy with that state of play then get round the table and come to a solution that if not completely watertight at least minimises supposedly ridiculous decisions. It could be that you are deemed offside only if it’s half a yard in it.

That is just me thinking aloud and using a possible example, but I just don’t agree with the clamour to bin something in its infancy without giving it a chance to breathe and evolve.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree, but I must say I'll be very disappointed to see it come in if it does

 

it's a far better gauge than a linesman in real time though.


The answer to it would be to change the rule so that there needs to be clear daylight between the attacker and defender.

 

Rules change. Sport evolves. Hawkeye in tennis has been a phenomenal success.

 

I haven't stated otherwise.

Hawk eye in tennis however, is not very relatable. The ball is in or out. There's no deliberation or misinterpretation there to be had. With the offside rule, somebody who looks nothing but onside in real time can end up being offside by a fraction of a knee with VAR. That's wrong whatever way you look at it and I've explained why above.

 

Well your argument that the rules were made to be applied by the human eye and should remain that way is poor, that’s why I highlighted it. Hawkeye in tennis is directly relatable to goal line technology and as previously stated, the rules can be adjusted for the offside complaint people have. It would open it up to human interpretation more but var is a tool that’s worth utilising imo.

 

Are you looking at Premier League games and thinking “yeah, that’s what I want” or are you thinking “we’ll implement it properly, unlike those twats”?

 

It's not poor and it is the basis of my view. Football has changed in numerous ways that I've accepted and in many cases agreed with, so your argument that anybody who doesn't back the introduction of VAR - despite the clear evidence South of the border that it is a negative thing - is a poor one and makes me wonder if you've read what I've said before replying.

I'm not against goal line technology and that's why I haven't mentioned that aspect. The likelihood of getting just that and not the whole package is very low though.

The changing of the offside rule in the manner mentioned still leaves it all down to human error and interpretation which as I've said, defeats the purpose of technology. The purpose being precision...making the sport a science which it is not supposed to be.

I'm not putting this out there as a major factor in any such decision, but a side story to this in my opinion is that it could be one of the final steps in turning it from a sport

Anybody who thinks Scottish football is going to be ahead of the curve in any sense needs to get looked at. The governing body and powers that be stumble from one shambles to the next, continuously.

 

It is poor and there’s more evidence than just England, and the complaints from fans are largely exaggerated. I don’t mind people being against var and I’ve taken on board there are issues with it, but taking the entire body of evidence into account, var seems like the way forward to me long term.

Agreed, it’s not likely.

It doesn’t defeat the purpose of technology, technology is an aid to be utilised. It’s a tool, not the decision maker.

 

The players and managers themselves dislike it as well, that's abundantly clear. It's not a poor argument, I've explained it in full.

I'll do so again. If you have the technology, you need to use it consistently and accurately. The line needs to be clear. With the aid of technology things which are impossible to see in the playing of the game are visible in retrospect.

That's where we differ in opinion it seems. It shouldn't be that way, because then it comes back to the rewarding or indeed penalisation of a player who could not have possibly been deemed offside to the human eye. The game is played by humans and defensive movement and attacking movement alike is decided using the human eye. Taking an attack as the example; we can't have players holding a run in such a way that they're sure they are onside (and for that to be the case to the eye of everybody else in the stadium and watching at home) only to have it chalked off for a millimetre of their boot being offside. That's not how the game needs to be, it's pedantic.

Your response is to change the rules, I don't feel that can be done in a fair manner either. If you say it's grace of half a yard given, that's still unair in the sense that, whilst the technology can measure that, the human eye can't do so precisely. The defender involved can only use the human eye. This is where the issue lies and I'm surprised that so few others have made that point. I'm sure the players would largely back that though.

 

In my opinion there's no reason that rules can't be tweaked to make the use of it fair and consistent. Teething issues were inevitable. You said your preference is to celebrate a goal immediately, which I can understand, but a mere preference isn't a strong enough argument against improving the way in which games are officiated. Neither are the other arguments about time wasting I've seen elsewhere. I don't find the human eye argument applicable at all either.

For the second part, I'll use the tennis analogy again. There are many balls that are actually 'in' during tennis matches that would have been impossible for the human eye to see, but having the technology allows the correct decision to be made. In my opinion, there's no reason that a tool which is better than the human eye can't be utilised to improve decisions, including a tweak of the rules, especially when it leads to the correct decision. Goal line technology will give us the correct decision; and we'll have to accept that even with VAR there will still be mistakes made, however statistics show that var improves the accuracy of decisions.

Where we agree is that a millimetre of a toe being offside is far too harsh, despite in the most pedantic sense it would still be offside. You're right that a defender can't judge precisely when someone is half a yard offside, but even before the introduction of var they couldn't always judge is someone was offside anyway. It's not the player's job to judge it anyway, which is a key point here, it's the officials', and I believe the officials should get all the help they can.

 

Celebrating a goal was merely a side point, not the crux of the argument, which I went on to make clear. The human eye argument is a fact. When playing the game you can only account for things using your eyes. You don't have technology to inform you that you need to step 0.5 yards in order to play somebody offside. Fairly basic.

Again, I haven't argued with goal line technology and so your tennis analogy isn't relevant. You admitted it won't come alone though and the evidence is before you that by far the most common use of technology is in penalty decisions and offside calls. Not goal line in/out calls.

It is part of the players job, taking the attacking side of the argument again, if you're called offside too many times that is your issue as a wide player/striker, it's something you'll draw criticism for and something you'd be expected to rectify, timing your runs and holding them effectively are important parts of your game.
Sometimes officials will be wrong, in Scotland they very often will, but many more times they'll be correct and in instances where they aren't, it will often be those marginal cases where you shouldn't be deemed offside for the reasons already discussed. With the use of technology the player would have to be called offside in that circumstance because that is the absolute letter of the law. A rule change involving exact distances of being offside etc doesn't hold sporting merit because of the fact that the players themselves have no way of judging that, only technology can. That'd also see the technology used in almost every instance because the linesman is not going to be able to judge exactly how far offside they are either. Which is why technology is not the way to go.
On top of that, the referees in England are finding reasons which aren't even there for penalising players, using technology. The Soucek red card last night wouldn't have even been discussed between the referee and his linesman and rightly so. In my opinion Scott Brown could well have been sent off against Kilmarnock the other night were technology in place. As it wasn't, he quite rightly was not.
The sport is already a business, let's not make it a science as well.

 

Yeah, but as I said it's not the players' job to officiate the game. They play as normal and adjust to any changes as has always been the case.

The tennis analogy is relevant because it illustrates the limitations of the human eye along with showing that technology can be used as a tool, including the choice to review penalties and offside calls, albeit with a tweaking of the rules. We don't agree on it which is fine, but I'd be more surprised if VAR was completely removed from the game permanently.

I disagree that a rule change doesn't hold sporting merit, just because there are limitations to what can be seen by the eye, even taking players into consideration. They'd just have to adjust, like players have in the past with the introduction or changing of rules. A pitch side screen where a referee can review his decision gives him a better chance of making that decision the correct one; to me that actually holds more sporting merit because it's more likely the correct decision will have been made. Ideally technology should review every decision in the background anyway, only notifying the officials if there's been an error. We clearly disagree about VAR's continuation in football so I don't see much point in flogging a dead horse, but there's no denying VAR is doing exactly the job it was created to do and the statistics I've seen so far shows that it improves the accuracy of refereeing decisions. More accuracy = fairer.

 

It's up to players to be in the correct position. The rules affect them as much as they do any official.
Adjust in what way? They can't adjust their eye sight, do they all just stay deep and forget about trying to hold a line? Since they won't be able to tell at all whether they're absolutely spot on to within half a yard. Not for me.

It isn't the correct one being made in the eyes of the players, managers or majority of supporters though, you're seeing what would ideally be there. It isn't though.

We will have to agree to disagree yes, you can't have players playing a guessing game essentially, it then becomes heavily about luck and that is where the sporting merit in it is lacking.

 

Adjust it to a full foot being offside, or something like that. I don't think a non goalscoring part of the body should count as being offside. Trials would be required to see what works best.

VAR removes the element of luck far more than not having VAR does, so I can't agree on that. More accurate decisions equals a fairer game, thus increasing sporting merit.

 

My point would just be the same as my previous again, so we're definitely at the stage of leaving it at that

 

VAR ruined the English game however seems to be working well enough at the Euro’s (IMO). Would seem it just depends on who is operating it.