The referees a....

VAR is to correct clear and obvious errors. That, under the laws of the game, is a clear and obvious error.

No player is at liberty to go around wiping out other players. Irrespective of where the ball is, or the perceived impact on that phase of play. The player on the ground holding his head is no longer able to contribute to play, as a result of a contravention of the laws.

Pretty much everyone who knows anything about football, and the head of the PGMOL, say that it should have been a penalty.

Anyone who persists in holding any other view on that incident is wrong. We need to work out what's wrong with them, and let them nowhere near decision making on the laws of the game. ... and probably nothing sharp while we are at it.

No. Because if he thought that, then he had not actually seen it clearly. Or he had no business being there in the first place.

It was a clear and obvious error, and VAR should have suggested that he view the incident and evaluate his decision.

That is exactly what we have been told VAR is for.

Taking a step back. PGMOL say that they don't want to re-referee the games. The only way to correct a wrong decision is to do exactly that.

The only way to not make wrong decisions, is to not make any decisions and review play after the event by committee.

Their process is wrong, and by their definition guaranteed to fail.

The whole thing is an idiocy from top to bottom.

Describing something as it is, is not a vendetta.

If you want to improve something, you first have to be prepared to look at what it is. Football is in a bad place if the sort of people who can look at the Onana incident, and not see a foul, are running things.

Fix them, or fuck them off and get new ones.

Things that shit me.

The laws of the game are no longer applied evenly over the whole pitch. In the middle of the park the game is refereed differently than around goalmouth incidents - which are subject to more scrutiny. Largely ignored are fouls that lead to goals after a couple of phases of play.....but that is what a game of football is....an attritional battle, to create statistically lumpy 'incidents'. General play has a massive impact on those goalmouth incidents.

Large phases of dead play happen, and are only pulled back for a foul or technical infringement if a goal happens. Decisions are habitually not made, and then re-refereed after the event. While we all wait around uncertain of the outcome. When play should be continuous. This massively affects the nature of a game. Particularly when some elements of an 'incident' are forensically scrutinised, but others (which may have arisen as a result of a tendency to not apply the laws in all cases) are completely overlooked.

This tendency to referee things differently, in different areas, leads to massive inconsistencies.

Actions in slo-mo, and from every angle, look very different from in real time, where movements within fractions of a second can easily be mistimed. Contact is not necessarily a foul....but any evidence of contact in slo-mo is used as an excuse for a poor decision. to back up the ref.

The referees and lino's (assistant referees my arse) are phoning it in...or more specifically waiting for VAR to phone it in, rather than make any difficult or contentious decision.

These inconsistencies, continuing dead phases of play, and delays while the committee in the broom cupboard comes to the wrong decision is completely changing the flow of the games. Substantially for the worse.

The laws of the game have been drastically modified to make them more able to be judged by VAR...but that has not proven to be the case. The current laws, and their interpretation - particularly in relation to offside, handball, but also in regard to differing interpretations of foul play, in different areas of the pitch, are a complete mess. for the spectator, for the officials, and for the players...and it makes everyone look silly, and gets frustrated coaches more regularly sent to the stands.

These are additional problems since VAR was introduced.....which happened because the judgement of 'football' was that referees were making clear and obvious errors, and needed help clearing those up...but it hasn't addressed the fundamental problem at the heart of that - officials judgement of incidents is flawed. It's still flawed. It's now arguably worse because they are not taking the same level of responsibility for making decisions, and delegating to committee rather than having one man make a decision.

The process is completely wrong to address the stated objectives. To a much larger extent the officiating is contrary to the spirit of the game. The referees judgement has not improved, it's got worse.

Of course to a large extent the football is not actually that important to most people. In the same way that people are not bothered about how money and the structure of the leagues has fundamentally changed the ability of clubs to compete on a level playing field. People are not actually that bothered about the ability of teams to be able to compete on the pitch under a consistently applied and fair set of rules. It's just all about the feelz and the resultz.

Okay. Tell me which ones are not shit.

The thread is leading the viewer in the direction of their own interpretation. Telling.

So shit, but with a good heart?

I don't think anyone who has played the game, at any level, expects any referee to be infallible, or get every decision right. Culturally football has always been a free for all moan up. Players at the opposition, their own players, the ref, and all back in return. For me it's one of the great things about the game, compared with, say, the faux gentility of tennis. Any bunch of football players, that are in any way close, spend most of their non-playing time taking the piss out of each other for falling over, missing a kick, committing a foul, or being done. Football games are a string of mistakes, tied together with the odd bout of competence.

Anyone who thinks that they can put together a framework of perfect officiating is de facto an idiot. Anyone who is sensitive about being told they got something wrong is temperamentally unsuited to the game.