santa sangria
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Highlights for me that the "protocol" is fundamentally flawed. Also that the Prem squad need some serious discipline.
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- Thread starter GraemeS
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santa sangria
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Great insight
santa sangria
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Hmm I think that's a bit harsh. Salah's moment of contact might have been quite hard for the AR to see. The offside was crossing trailing leg - difficult even with all flash lag training.
The AR is not to blame here. The fault is in the lack of leadership in the VAR team. Line of reporting is wrong. Wrong people on the details. And then the actual allowed communications should be much tighter. Surely it should be "Check complete - good goal, good goal, good goal."
I am stunned at how passive the group is. Play has just restarted with the wrong restart. Any sane switched on referee should be screaming - "kick off, kick off, stop the game and kick off" to correct this.
Too busy calling each other mate, think I counted four.
The VAR has a button in front of them that they push to talk to the on field crew so the RO would only be telling the VAR to delay the game.
I'm not. It's pretty common for people to freeze while trying to process catastrophic situation. Afterall, military pilots and special ops soliders go through specific training to keep focused after **** hits the fan.
Absolutely. But if the VAR had trusted the replay operator and echoed his shout down the mic, it would have been an easy almost immediate fix. Imagine a world where the referee heard that shout and blew his whistle - no one would have objected to the fact the ball was passed one or twice if the goal was then given.
By completely ignoring the one guy in the room that was actually paying attention, they missed the window for a low-impact fix. And we find ourselves in the position where they would need to pull back 20+ seconds of play to fix it. My understanding is that the on-field official is supposed to be the one that actually makes decisions - the VAR only advises and assists. So why wasn't the ref given the opportunity to make that call?
Lack of concentration, that can be the only reason, only the replay operator seemed switched on throughout. Darren England seemed quite slow in what the replay operator was on about and I'm sure England thought when the replay operator mentioned Oli, he was on about the 4th official and not this PGMOL guy so he must of pressed the button when he mentioned Oli and despite Michael saying "go on", England never said anything with no doubt his mind has gone blank. This was the point where Hooper had that quizzical look given speculation he was told what happened but seemingly he looked confused because all he got through his earpiece was "Oli".
I think the nicknames has to stop and whilst I'm not totally against the term mate being used, it's being used too much I feel. I also question if England was fatigued mentally given his slow reaction to what the replay operator was on about with the Oli stuff and seemingly did not seem aware a free kick was taken for quite some time.
Think it was too late, once check complete had been said play restarted almost immediately, and certainly before the VAR operator had communicated his concerns. People have talked about a replay and there are no grounds for that, but if the decision had been changed after play had restarted there would have been as that would have been 100% incorrect in law. If Spurs ended up losing the game they would have absolutely valid grounds to seek a replay, whereas Liverpool don't.
There will be a lot of lessons learned from this, but the key one has to be better communication. "Check complete" isn't enough, what check is complete, what were you checking? If Darren England had said "check complete, you can award the goal" we obviously wouldn't be in this mess, 5 extra words would have avoided a world of trouble.
I said it before, but I think Darren England is going to get thrown to the wolves for this. Clearly being stood down for one weekend isn't going to be enough, but it remains to be seen what action they take. I feel for Dan Cook as he wasn't really given much of an opportunity to correct this mistake, once check complete has been said and the free kick has been taken he is powerless. And that is the other take away from this, the law needs to be changed so that a decision can be changed after play has restarted.
Still key questions are VAR & AVAR concentrating on watching the game, Diaz disappointment at being flagged offside, crowd cheering, players set up to take the free kick, all good clues.
I have no issue, when the ball next went out of play, halt the game, tell Hooper for a VAR check, no different to an off the ball violent conduct check. Then you let the more experienced Hooper & Oliver decide if the lesser of two evils is to rewind play & award the goal. Take the flak for breaking the laws of the game but the mitigation is the match situation is better, the goal counts.
I have no issue, when the ball next went out of play, halt the game, tell Hooper for a VAR check, no different to an off the ball violent conduct check. Then you let the more experienced Hooper & Oliver decide if the lesser of two evils is to rewind play & award the goal. Take the flak for breaking the laws of the game but the mitigation is the match situation is better, the goal counts.
No, you can't do that. VAR is there to correct clear and obvious breaches of the laws. So clearly it can't itself breach a law by trying to get a decision changed after play has been restarted. There probably should be a law change to allow that to happen, but as it stands it can't.
Not really sure how Michael Oliver comes into this as he was fourth official so would have had no impact into this mess.
RefIADad
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Michael Oliver is a member of the onfield officiating crew. Why wouldn’t he be a part of the communication process? He’s one of the two most senior referees in England. I know if I were on his crew and he said “we may be screwing this up” while he was the fourth, I’d sure as hell listen to him.
santa sangria
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santa sangria
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Up early today…
Talksh*** yesterday - “let’s move on, time for Liverpool to draw a line under this”
Talksh*** today - “let’s have a peak time phone in and devote an hour to VAR and get some callers on to say that referees are arrogant and should be punished.”
VAR is not improving football culture. For referees, it’s a trap.
EDIT: The VAR audio is crack for media. The audio is so meme-friendly. What the prem have done by releasing it so quick - without precedent- is destroy the officials’ credibility and this has a knock on for all of us.
Talksh*** yesterday - “let’s move on, time for Liverpool to draw a line under this”
Talksh*** today - “let’s have a peak time phone in and devote an hour to VAR and get some callers on to say that referees are arrogant and should be punished.”
VAR is not improving football culture. For referees, it’s a trap.
EDIT: The VAR audio is crack for media. The audio is so meme-friendly. What the prem have done by releasing it so quick - without precedent- is destroy the officials’ credibility and this has a knock on for all of us.
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WiisardNic
Well-Known Member
Multi-quoting here because you've all touched on it.
MLS (from what I've seen in their Inside Video Review series) has this down pat, by using "Good Goal" (as Santa has alluded to already) in their communications.
Just needs to be a clear process once VAR wants to intervene/check:
* VAR confirms on-field decision with on-field referee.
* Check process
* Confirm outcome and restart procedure with the referee.
Same thing happens in Rugby League in Australia, as an example, although the on-field referee instigates the check.
R
Runner-Ref
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On your second paragraph, they couldn’t do this. Once play is restarted, they cannot go back. As Rusty said earlier on; had they done this, that actually would be grounds for a replay at it would be completely wrong in law.
As nice and easy as that sounds as a fix, it would have probably been the only way to have made the outcome worse.
R
Runner-Ref
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MO being part of the comms isn’t an issue. But he’s highly unlikely to get involved on whether someone is in an offside position.
I'm surprised PGMOL has released the audio in the manner it has. It would have been far better for them to have called a press conference first to release the audio, which would have allowed Howard Webb to answer questions and take some responsibility for the protocol/process, which along with human error is the reason for this omnishambles, Simply releasing the audio has created a void with gold dust material which will only make the situation worse and, whilst it's a major error by the VAR and AVAR, it does feel like they're being thrown to the wolves.
Pretty much everyone's said it but it's not rocket science:
1. No more nicknames - more formal communication styles are much needed.
2. Establish verbally from outset what is being checked (in this case "Goal disallowed, checking offside.")
3. Establish at end of any check the full outcome, not just "check complete" (in this case, "Check complete, you can award the goal.")
What always amazes me when they release the audio is just how much talking is going on between the on-field officials. For example, why is AR2 telling AR1 to "give it"? I can only speak for myself but constantly hearing people wittering away in my ear whilst trying to concentrate could easily distract me.
Pretty much everyone's said it but it's not rocket science:
1. No more nicknames - more formal communication styles are much needed.
2. Establish verbally from outset what is being checked (in this case "Goal disallowed, checking offside.")
3. Establish at end of any check the full outcome, not just "check complete" (in this case, "Check complete, you can award the goal.")
What always amazes me when they release the audio is just how much talking is going on between the on-field officials. For example, why is AR2 telling AR1 to "give it"? I can only speak for myself but constantly hearing people wittering away in my ear whilst trying to concentrate could easily distract me.
In the transcript, when the replay operator refers to Oli (talking about the VAR hub fella), England says "Oli?" and Michael Oliver says "Yes?" - I think that's more why his name comes up.
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