Recent content by GraemeS

Don't over-fixate on the word "penalise". Anything the AR signals for is technically within the referee's power to disagree with and wave down. Sometimes that's the correct thing to do, sometimes it's a poor judgement call and sometimes that means he'll be wrong in law to do so. Doesn't stop him...

I don't think this is wrong, but also, I don't think it should automatically rule out aiming for consistency and only achieving 90% of the way. Unlike the current approach which seems designed to leave such a large grey area that 50% coin-flip consistency is the top-end limit by design.

But the AR technically doesn't get to make that decision, they are only recommending a decision. However inadvisedly, the referee can decide they don't want to penalise for it - in which case, we have an "incorrect" stoppage and the correct restart would be a drop ball either to the attacking...

I think that is an interesting point. I read Dale Johnson's article most weeks and a reoccurring theme is the idea that VAR isn't designed to produce consistency. Which kind of leads to the question: why not? The system is designed in such a way that two identical "handball" penalties can be...

I mean, it absolutely is a bigger/more important question in two ways. 1: It's part of the LOTG, which is higher in the hierarchy of rules than competition rules which determine if a respect handshake is required. 2: Consequences of not carrying out the handshake are limited to a glorified...

That specifically doesn't say they couldn't intervene, only that they didn't. They were perfectly empowered to make the call, they just didn't either realise the fact there was a call to make, or didn't believe they had the right to do so. VAR isn't magic or algorithm based AI making decisions...

The correct answer is: Do what the league rules say to do. In reality - if the teams are walking out of the changing rooms at the start of the game, I'll lead them out and line them up for the handshake. That's easy and probably what they do expect, even if I'm on my own. Ditto if I'm doing any...

There are sensible ways this could have been done, this just isn't it. The concern is obviously gate receipts for a smaller team being lost - the solution IMO would have been to keep the revenue split but bundle this with a rule change that states if matches are drawn between teams from...

Agree with Santa - phrasing this as a "disagreement" with your AR is needlessly confrontational and dismissive. They have part of the information and given the lack of comms, did the only thing they could with the info they had. Your job is to take the information they gave you, add your own...

I think you can find one this past weekend in the United Coventry semi-final.

How many games has your fictional manager refereed in front of hundreds? This is a theoretical suggested improvement. Current IFAB requirements don't have to factor in unless they actually have merit. And every referee has to do their first PL game at some point, referees don't spring from...

The overarching trend in England is of too much caution when it comes to the VAR getting involved. So my guess is that it's much more likely that a red card given on field would be incorrectly not overturned by VAR. Alexis MacAllister for example was sent off against Bournemouth towards the...

Charitable reading - Clatts phoned Webb to ask him if this was a conflict of interests, he/Forest considered that putting in a request, Webb didn't consider it as such. Uncharitable reading - just as you said.

And I think that's an argument that needs to be examined and considered - not just accepted as irrefutable truth as it seems to be now.

Fair enough, correction noted - but I don't think it materially changes the point I was making.