VAR Revisited

[HIF]

Another year has passed. what do you all think?

As you know I've always been a big proponent of VAR but this second half of the year has shaken me. I like VAR because it takes the human out of the equation thereby removing the human error, human corruption and human bias. In the second half of the season VAR has been used to re-inforce the human error and human bias. The definition of "clear and obvious" has been used to help the big clubs whenever it is needed and to make the small clubs stay small. This has come to a head with the penaly in the 4th minute of the Leicester Roma match yesterday, clearest penalty I've ever seen in my life, not given on the pitch (where possibly it wasn't seen) but not given by VAR. I'm no longer in favour of VAR. I would like technology to replace refs completely but since that's not going to happen we may as well ditch VAR (and goal line technology etc...) Refs need better training but I'd start by replacing every top European and EPL ref with the lady refs who now manage matches.

[Foye]

I think there are less errors with VAR in general but often times it shows when the video assistant referee has a personal preference for one of the teams.

[fbalmeida]

Can't speak for the experience abroad, but the way VAR is conducted in Portugal is a sham, all the way down to the bush league software they use to draw the magical lines.

For instance, this Benfica goal vs arch-nemesis FC Porto was called back by the VAR, on account of 2 cm.



2 cm

So yeah, giving this sort of discretionary power to football officials that are incessantly pressured from all sides, mainly by violent members of the "Super Dragões" (Super Dragons), an FC Porto supporter group that is run like long-time club president Pinto da Costa's personal mafia... is probably a bad idea. That is of course, when club officials on his orders, weren't providing prostitutes or envelopes of cash (tapped phone conversations were and still are all over youtube with this) directly to them.

The good news is that Pinto da Costa is 84 years old and assumedly mortal like the rest of the us.

[fbalmeida]

1:15 of this clip:

Watch on YouTube

[Foye]

Can't speak for the experience abroad, but the way VAR is conducted in Portugal is a sham, all the way down to the bush league software they use to draw the magical lines.

For instance, this Benfica goal vs arch-nemesis FC Porto was called back by the VAR, on account of 2 cm.



2 cm

So yeah, giving this sort of discretionary power to football officials that are incessantly pressured from all sides, mainly by violent members of the "Super Dragões" (Super Dragons), an FC Porto supporter group that is run like long-time club president Pinto da Costa's personal mafia... is probably a bad idea. That is of course, when club officials on his orders, weren't providing prostitutes or envelopes of cash (tapped phone conversations were and still are all over youtube with this) directly to them.

The good news is that Pinto da Costa is 84 years old and assumedly mortal like the rest of the us.

Well, 2cm offside is 2cm offside.

I wish they would change the rules in that regard. Every time the attacker is on the same height as the defender with his body it shouldn’t be an offside, doesn‘t matter whether his foot is 2cm ahead…

[fbalmeida]

But 2 cm in relation to what? 2 cm is the width of a nostril. Twice the length of a fingernail. How does the VAR technician discern that sort of precision from a grainy pixelated zoomed in still image of players in motion? And whatever happened to granting the benefit of the doubt to the attacking player?

It's no doubt a well meaning idea, but it's explored quite overtly in the Portuguese league as just another way for unscrupulous club officials - and none are as unscrupulous as Pinto da Costa, who once fled to Vigo, Spain to avoid being arrested on corruption charges - to cheat. It's systematic.







It's the Portuguese league, it gets essentially zero international media coverage, and Mr. Pinto can get away with whatever he wants within the bounds of domestic public outrage. He's curated the country's refereeing talent pool by packing the league stock with his protégées from the Porto regional football association, which he essentially runs with an iron fist.

His codewords for high-end hookers and money is, respectively "bedtime fruit" and "candy".



https://bleacherreport.com/articles/330214-fc-porto-leaked-phone-taps-proof-major-corruption-scandal

Welcome to domestic Portuguese football. The (only) good news is that he won't live forever.

[magik9113]

Serie A has been enjoying the worst officiating in years. They used to have great refs but that ended 10 years ago. VAR is a joke in that league for sure, but it may be due to all of the refs being incompetent.

[fbalmeida]

UEFA and FIFA and whomever else there is that cares or certifies the quality of officiating is certainly not insensitive to the current Portuguese predicament. When they announced the officials that will be at Qatar 2022, nobody in this country was surprised that zero Portuguese officials were called up. Zero. The same number we had in Russia 2018.