According to the LOTG, no decision may be changed after a restart has taken place with the referee's permission. So VAR review cannot go beyond the last restart.
The TV box is the signal to be made when the referee is going over to consult the video himself (an "on-field review" or OFR) and/or a decision has been rendered (so it gets made twice when the referee uses the OFR and changes the previous decision; it gets made once when he takes the advice of the VAR to change a decision without consulting the monitor). The hand to the ear signal is official and is used to let everyone know that he is receiving information from the VAR. If the receipt of that information leads to the conclusion that the decision doesn't need to be reviewed formally and won't be changed, no television box signal is made. Agree it is somewhat ridiculous and that it is vague for the public. The concept is that review is limited to the "attacking phase of play" (APP), which is defined in the protocols. But that doesn't stop it from being ridiculous. I'd argue that is the least of the concerns regarding fan enjoyment, but it's a perfectly acceptable example. No. You can't go back before a previous restart. And, given the whole APP concept, let's imagine the ball never went out of play and that the defending team had clearly gained possession for a moment after that header... your hypothetical then couldn't be reviewed either. Also, this isn't "MLS" or "Bundesliga" VAR procedures. There is a single set of IFAB protocols. The competitions undertaking the experiment have some leeway within the protocols (some competitions, for example, encourage referees to take more OFRs on penalties and red cards while others encourage more autonomy for the VARs--that variance is because the IFAB protocols allow for either option right now), but the actual rules governing VARs and VR are top-down, from the IFAB. How things get reviewed might vary a bit while the experiment continues, but what is allowed to be reviewed and what is not is crystal clear universally.
It got used in England today for an FA Cup match. After reading a couple articles, it's pretty clear than no one in the British press know how the system works.
I find it strange how they chose to implement it tbh. VAR will be used in the upcoming SF and final of the league cup and that's fine. But here you have VAR in some but not all matches in the same round of the FA cup.
There seems to be this idea that if the match wasn't stopped and the center didn't go look at a TV screen, then the VAR didn't look at it. It must be too hard to imagine that the VAR looked at eight things during the match and none of them required intervention.
British press having no idea how something that’s been reported on for 2 years now works and opting to make wild guesses and assumptions instead of doing research is the most predictable thing ever.
A neat little factoid from the BBC ahead of the match with VAR today. It looked as if it was not used, even when Eagles players claimed Glenn Murray handled for the winner. But the only reason it was not engaged was because there were no 'clear and obvious errors' made by referee Andre Marriner. He actually consulted with video referee Neil Swarbrick 11 times during the match, to check no mistakes had been made That bit at the end makes me think the FA/PGMOL reached out to the media after a flew of "why didn't the VAR look at the goal" stories.
First half at Stamford Bridge saw Atkinson hold up play three times. A reckless tackle had a bit of orange to it and there was a slight hint of a PK. Total delay was about 45 seconds. Hasn't stopped fans from complaining about the system.
I take if from the half-time stats that the tackle that had a hint of orange was ruled to be a careless foul.
Overall a terribly dull match. Atkinson held up play four times for a VAR check. The 88th minute penalty shout resulted in play being held up about a minute. It was perhaps 30 seconds too long, but I'm not going to fault them wanting to be 100% in that situation.
We have VAR being used in the Leicester/Fleetwood FA Cup replay. It was an interesting case too. AR puts the flag up for offside, but the center delays the whistle momentarily. The ball ends up in the back of the net. The ref gives the TV box signal and awards the goal. The commentators were expecting the ref to go look at it, but in this case he didn't need to.
Man I am glad that don't have that technology anywhere near where I am going to be. Attackers body is in front of about 98% of the defender, but his foot does keep him onside. Now we can scrutinize an AR for "missing" this call when I would be hard pressed to see anyone get this call correct in real time. But at least this is another reason to beat up on the officials for missing more calls and having them be "complete rubbish". Maybe just do what the CR does and just play it out and go back to VAR for confirmation.
The only reason to question the AR flag is the concept that you should be sure of OS to flag it. But I will also confess that I am not 100% convinced that the video provides conclusive evidence. Judging the exact moment of actual contact is essentially impossible, and on this play, hundredths of a second will decide if he is inches on or inches off.
To me, I can see why the AR was "sure" he was offside. Looking down that line from his position all I would see is blue. Not sure if I would catch the boot of the defender. and you are correct. that one hundredth of a second from ball contact to the look down the line. Is this the standard to reached? So no we play the "Wait and see if a goal is scored, then go to VAR".
The instruction is for the referee to hold the whistle if there is an immediate scoring chance. If there is a through ball, a cross into the penalty area, or a cross from a free kick and the flag goes up, expect to see a slower whistle just to make sure the ball doesn't end up in the goal during the next 2 or 3 seconds. On a side note, this brings up the interesting situation of a through ball with a potential goalkeeper collision. This is a situation where AR's are instructed to pop the flag a bit earlier so the center can blow the whistle. I'm assuming the officials will lean towards protecting the GK if the two players are racing for a loose ball.
I held out some limited hope that the IFAB would cast a critical eye on VAR and, at the very least, ensure that it was improved before being fully sanctioned. Instead, I just saw this: Facts and figures about the VAR experiment. pic.twitter.com/yolgWcK9Ag— The IFAB (@TheIFAB) January 22, 2018 Good propaganda usually is somewhat subtle. This video is insane. I'd be upset, but not surprised, if FIFA produced this. I think I'm despondent that the IFAB chose to put this out. Also, what exactly does it mean that without VAR 71.4% of mistaken identity cases were inaccurately decided?
Anyone with a critical eye and a basic understanding of the VAR experiment could impeach many of the statistical claims in the table near the top of this document. The main problem is that the facts & figures are presented under the assumption that everyone has been fine with the definition of "clear and obvious error" in the 804 competitive matches included to date in the experiment. We all know that isn't true. Regardless, the rest of the document is very informative and much closer to being objectively presented: http://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/docume...FAB_Media_Package_ABM2017_all_media_FINAL.pdf
I thought this bit quite funny: The accuracy of decisions in the reviewable categories has increased by 5.9% to 98.9%. (100% accuracy impossible due to human perception and subjectivity in decision-making). Laughable at best, that is!
Right. They would need to define "accurate" somewhere to have this make any sense and for it to be transparent. Presumably, they are using "not clearly and obviously wrong" to equate to "accurate." Leaving aside that being a false equivalency, that would mean admitting that, despite the premise of eliminating clearly and obviously wrong incidents in their four categories, 1 out of 100 times, something that was clearly and obviously wrong stood despite the presence of VR. When you think about the number of goals scored, potential red cards and penalties, and relevant offside decisions, I'm not sure I'd say that's an impressive statistic. Of course, the counter argument would be that's a great improvement over the cited 93% accuracy figure prior to the implementation of VAR. And, on paper, it is. But with so much of this in the eye of the beholder, do the statistics mean anything or make any sense? We've seen countless incidents where VAR intervention certainly failed to result in the preferred or expected call. If those incidents don't count as "inaccurate," just because they weren't deemed "clearly and obviously wrong," how real is the improvement? If you read between the lines here, the argument appears to be there was great improvement in decision-making solely because VAR existed because the statistics are all based on the 804 matches. You'd need a comparison between these matches and 804 matches without VAR to really tell what has occurred. And what you'd really want is an independent judgment on what the correct call should be in all these incidents, not just what was "clearly and obviously wrong," to see if there's an actual overall improvement to the game. Alas, I doubt many in the media will do the critical analysis to dig into these figures and instead we're left being force-fed data from an organization that appears to have already made up its mind (I knew FIFA had; I had hoped the IFAB hadn't).
it seems incredibly unfair that they're using VAR in some FA Cup games but not all of them. How does that make for an even competition?
How does it not? Both teams in the game have VAR or don't have VAR. I think it is a silly way to run a competition, has horrible optics, and invites mocking but I don't think it makes the competition uneven--no more than some games having referees with a higher foul bar and reluctance to give cards and others games with referees more likely to call PKs and show plastic. In every game it is the same for both teams.
If you accept the premise that the purpose of VR is to correct injustices, rather than it simply being a new system of officiating, and that the cup is a competition amongst all the entered teams, rather than just a series of individual matches, he has a point. Because it means certain teams have the VAR safety net that could prevent their elimination while others do not. I can’t get too worked up over that, however, precisely because this far the application of the VAR system has been erratic and leans more toward a new system of officiating, rather than a safety net.