VAR? For or against

[Cobra]

I think it lost all credibility when they announced they were making it less accurate in order that it would sometimes deliberately make incorrect decisions go over rule assistants and favour attacking teams.

It's that type of legalistic view that implementers of VAR in England hold that shows a misunderstanding of both the game and the technology, that has pretty much ruined what should be something that made the game much better. 

Firstly VAR is not 100% accurate. The timing of the freeze frame and the drawing of the lines can lead to small degree of error.
Secondly, and most importantly the rule is that if you are ahead of the defender you have an advantage and are offside. If you are level with the defender you are onside and do not have an illegal advantage.

The VAR implementers have removed ' level' from the equation. They seem to believe that somebody has to be in front, as if they were judging a 100m final at the Olympics!  It's nonsense in my view.  A toe being millimeter ahead is not an advantage, when players are in line with each other. All you need to do is look at rugby who use the technology to improve the game, but keep the spirit of the rules intact. Have a look on the screen, level is level is onside. Ahead of the defender is offside.

I thought they have fixed this in England when I heard about the Fernandes goal in week 1, but looking at Match of the Day on Saturday, there were two clear incidents of players being level but being called offside by VAR, including the Newcastle one reference above.

I have two issues with that. Firstly there's no requirement that you have to gain an advantage for it to be offside because what constitutes an advantage is so hard to define. For example you can be closer to the opponents goal line but further from their goal than a defender for example you receive the ball in a wide position. Is that an advantage?  What about if you are coming back from an offside position into three or four defenders. Is that an advantage? Similarly that toe may be more of an advantage if it's that few inches which makes the difference between getting the touch and not getting it.

With rules in sport like that one you want to eliminate subjectivity and grey areas as far as possible not introduce more. Otherwise you create (and this is my major problem with VAR) a hierarchy of rules. Whether a foul was inside or outside the box has just as much impact on a game as whether a ball was a corner or a goal kick. Albeit our perception of it's importance may not be the same. When one of those is reviewed even though it's subjective and the objective one is not I feel it leads to even greater injustice on incorrect decisions. Injustice on incorrect decisions being the whole thing it was designed to eliminate.

I've long opposed VAR and I have seen nothing since it's introduction to suggest it's good for the game. The fact the premier league went as far as to say that using this years rules there would have been 20+ more goals allowed last year (wrongly) just to me at least shows how utterly pointless it is.

I bet you're fun at parties.

Invariably, this type of statement is uttered by someone who thinks they are a great laugh but whom everyone else considers to be a complete dose of dung.

The "ah fcuk, here comes this slabber" sort.

David, please come and collect your Da....

[Franko]

I'm sure that sounded funny in your head.