VAR

[Jute]

Agreed. I cannot see any benefit VAR brings to the game. Especially for those at the stadium. I would rather the money was spent on improving the training for the match officials to improve standards instead. 

[RicoS321]

If only we could have known....

We've gone from saying that refereeing decisions even themselves out over a season, to saying that VAR decisions even themselves out over the season. It's ludicrous when you look at it that way. What is ludicrous is that there are still people saying "it isn't VAR that's the issue, it's the people using it", and "it's good, but it just needs to be used for clear and obvious errors". Even after several years, with evidence worldwide, they still don't seem to understand what it is. 

Me and my mate were discussing the BBC article about the errors too. We couldn't work out whether it was terrible journalism, or just the BBC being too weak to challenge the status quo, but in an article discussing four errors in a weekend, they never said how many were correct, or give a proportion. Any other other news story, the headline would be "80% decisions incorrect" or whatever, but they seem wary of presenting it in a bad light, or as the failure that it has been. Not just the BBC, but absolutely nobody is going into it in any depth whatsoever either. Of the four decisions that VAR intervened in, were any of them clear-cut? Would anyone have actually given a fuck about them in the aftermath? Would anyone have cared that Devlin wasn't sent off? It's the level of interference in the most trivial of things (because once you introduce VAR, it can only be the case). Genuinely, nobody gives a fuck about 90% of the calls. The overwhelming majority are calls that you can see why they were given, or weren't, and could be described as soft or otherwise. That part doesn't get talked about though. The insipid interviews with Collum only seek to validate the technology, which is why they are actually harmful. He never gets asked about calls that were let go, versus ones that weren't (because the ones that were let go aren't classed as VAR calls, despite being the case). He never gets called up on the fact that one incident has two possible outcomes depending on how the referee calls it. For instance, if the referee had given handball against Shankland, VAR wouldn't have overturned, but they let it go because he didn't (the opposite being the non foul on the goalie in the same game). The whole question of whether to re-referee a game or not, in itself, proves that the technology isn't fit for purpose, and never can be. It's a logical fallacy in and of itself. 

What should have happened was that the money was spent on training and communication. We should have asked the BBC to take the lead in its highlights programmes to present refereeing in a better light, always trying to look at why a referee might have given a decision based on the angle etc. Also, make sure to weigh up a ref's call with a striker missing a chance or a defender being out of position to show that games are won and lost on a culmination of points. I'm certain that the BBC would have been open to it, especially if they got communication from the refs. Less so the paid channels, but they'd probably fall into line for something as trivial as most Scottish football games (because they only cover the scum anyway), and they'd keep their screaming hysteria for the scum game. Rule changes such as only speaking to captains should have been in place before VAR, but also campaigns, led by players, to show refs respect, and paint a wider understanding of their fallibility. Beaton didn't have a worse game than most of our players yesterday for example. Even in the Falkirk game, where the ref was honking, Aouchiche and Keskinen were worse. It's rare that the refs are the worst player on the park, and they should be treated as players in the game, because fundamentally that's what they are.

Edited September 21 by RicoS321