Margins of error are typically drawn around a calculated mean or median. So to even come up with some sort of 'fuzzy line' for offside, you've still got to put the centre line somewhere. Now all you've done is move the argument over where the line is from the line that is currently drawn, to the edge of the margin of error area or line. You've turned a line into a rectangle. It doesn't help. For the cameras/general public I guess you could not draw the central line. It would fool people into thinking that they were taking the error into account, when infact it's no better than it was before.
12 Dec 2024
126
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But in this context you cannot be sure of the accuracy of the original observations, so there is no way to calculate a margin of error. Pick an arbitrary figure, say 5cm, and say that if the VAR shows a decision within that amount then the onfield decision stands.
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And people will still feel the decision is wrong when it is against them and right when it is for them.
So, it's all a waste of time and money. You can have that same effect without VAR.
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Exactly. So either go with what you've got, or forgot it.
Where are you measuring this 5cm from? How are you determining the central point for this 5cm?
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Cricket seems to have managed to do it with the umpires call without any of the controversy you highlight, how have they done that?
There's massive overlap I think between folks who watch cricket and watch football so it should be possible to devise something with less arguments in football shouldn't it?
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I guess they are drawing the margins of error on the screen but not the central line around which they're calculated.
Is there not debate in cricket around whether the ball is in/out of the fuzzy area that they show? I mostly watch cricket in the sun with a beer in my hand so I honestly don't know.
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Let's imagine for a moment that it could draw a perfect line (it can't), and make a perfect decision about who was the wrong or right side of it at any given moment...and just at the exact moment that the ball left the kickers foot, which just happened to be completely synchronised to an available frame, which wasn't compromised by the perspective and different heights of different extremities, and that it was able to identify the exact part of the correct most forward goalscorable body part relative to the opposition players protruding bits....and then you factored in the movements relative to offside, and immediate phases of play and checked for any possible contributing or preceding incidents which change (re-referee) the outcome....and lets imagine that you could do all that perfectly. The question for me would be why are you doing that, for some things, and not other things? What about in other parts of the pitch? What about the countless game influencing things that referees miss, and are not directed to? What about those clear failures in interpretation - the mistakes in law...what about the contradictory interpretations that are clearly against any notion of consistency?
The very idea that it can make any useful contribution to football, in its current form taking into account the spirit in which the game be played, is an obvious nonsense.
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Does cricket use diameter of ball or half a ball or something. So link it to a dimension of the ball to give some psuedo science to the 5cm..
Measure from the bit of d fender currently measuring from.
Less controversy as if someone is a toenail plus 5cm offside then it's harder to argue about as you're saying they would need to be a toenail and 5cm further back to be onside not just a toenail?
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For example in this image. That blue line/area that is drawn. There is no margin of error shown right? Why aren't cricket fans moaning about that? The pic shown could actually be out?
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yes that's what I said earlier really. I said " For the cameras/general public I guess you could not draw the central line [just draw an area]. It would fool people into thinking that they were taking the error into account, when infact it's no better than it was before."
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Is there anyone who actually cares about cricket who isn't somewhere abroad, pissed, and with sunburn?
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@tricky I see your point, but I think a majority can accept taking a prioritised, risk based approach to the decisions that are subject to review for the sake of having a game at all. But until everything else you write is factored in better it's all a bit moot.
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@JimShady ultimately what you need is something where you can look at the still frame and think the player looks offside. Both of what we described should achieve that. Maybe
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When it's demonstrably that shit, and out of step with how the rest of the game is refereed? I thought consistency and getting things right mattered? do you only mean when players does a kick at the goal? (which may be the result of an illegitimate phase of play that shouldn't even of happened because of a failure of officiating).
As far as I can see any attempt to get behind what it is, is either a vested interest, a pathological desire to conform to what you are told, or a deep antipathy to what football should actually be. Maybe bits of more than one.
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Hopefully they’ll VAR the fuck out of everything in the future. That throw in should be taken from there, and that goalie’s taking that free kick from the wrong place. Dreamy stuff.
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For offside, not only is there an attempt to quantify something that is patently not quantifiable, it’s taking minutes to do so for something thats not obvious. “Officials’ call” needs to exist if they are going to use technology. Use the automated offside system and it’s all done in seconds. It doesn't really matter what the margin of error is.
In cricket they are trying to estimate the flight of a moving/spinning/swinging ball. Ok, some parameters are fixed: where it pitched and (usually) where it hit the batter. There’s something about umpires call in cricket that gives a degree of satisfaction even if it doesn’t go your way.
Interesting in tennis, they are so confident of (or confident with) the technology that they are beginning to do away with line judges. And in football, no-one debates the goal line technology. So there appears to be comfort with absolute decisions.
