At the rate we are going, I'd say by the 2034 or 2038 WC, assistants won't even be flagging any close offsides in any situations. It will just be left to VAR. The efficiency of offside checks will undoubtely improve. So if you can say "off" or "on" within 10 seconds from the VOR, that will solve everything. Goal situations and penalties could obviously be dispensed with, but you could also prevent "wrong" corner kicks from happening. I don't see any other eventuality here. ARs could still flag obvious offside decisions, I suppose. But we probably will one day reach the point where the VAR or AVAR could just give that immediately in the ear of the referee, too. I hate to be the doomsday guy, but I think we are on the path to ARs as we know them becoming extinct. Boundary decisions and assisting with the true policing of the game on-the-field would still be in their purview. But we seem to be on an inexoerable path to offside decisions simply being taken out of their hands.
So Dean, Atkinson, and Darren Cann are just going to referee forever? Refereeing in the EPL is such a sweet gig compared to other countries because the travel is so minimal. You can be in your own bed the same day as your game where in the US it's almost impossible unless you're doing a game in the city you live in.
Absent a wholesale rejection of video review, which seems so unlikely to be pointless to talk about, that seems all but certain. But is it just the ARs who risk becoming figure heads? As the speed of review picks up, what prevents the eye-in-the-sky from making all important calls with a couple of logistics managers on the field to do things like put down the foam on FKs? That takes physical fitness off the table for the "real" referee and means they can "ref" much longer. Even just with ARs, a big loser in that process is the higher levels of play that are still below having video. I suspect that many/most of those ARs are ones who are hoping to advance to the top tier--as more and more responsibility is taken from ARs, who would aspire to do that? (Or do we go back to the same Rs play both roles, and being the stuffed shirt on the touchline is just part of what you do to be a top tier ref?)
The unintended consequences across the sport as a whole for the next couple decades are massive. And I don't think anyone is planning for them.
Agreed about Arsenal, given the drop in their status in recent years. The "Big Six" is not dominant as it used to be a few years ago (or, more notably, the "Big Four" before that), so Brentford - Arsenal may not be a bigger match than Leicester - Wolves. And sure, Arsenal vs Liverpool would be open to more referees than Man City vs United, though I disagree that it would be "practically open for every referee in the EPL pool". I don't see Brooks, Gillett, Harrington, Salisbury, Bankes, Hooper, or England getting it this season. Same with other intra-Big Six matches.
And the evidence from the last couple of seasons suggests that the PGMO still consider Arsenal home games as a 'big' appointment given the very small pool of (generally FIFA or ex-FIFA) referees that get appointed there, as opposed to most other clubs. Remember the Emirates is the 3rd biggest ground in the league after all. Having said all that, I take your point, and couldn't understand why some of the lower ranking SG1 officials weren't appointed there last season with no crowd to give them that experience before the 60,000 return.
Tweet thread two from Dale Johnson on soft pks and VAR. New season VAR / refereeing changes thread No. 2: SOFT FREE-KICKS AND PENALTIES- What's a "soft" free-kick / penalty- Ethos behind it- Influence of Euro 2020- Examples of so-called "soft" penalties- Issues with implementation / VAR- Unlikely to be a smooth ride— Dale Johnson (@DaleJohnsonESPN) August 10, 2021
Oh boy. Some of his examples. #1, for instance, is a clear step on the top of the foot. It's a foul. It's a penalty. I don't care if Aguero then lifts the landing gear to exaggerate it. You can't step on the top of your opponent's foot while he's running away from you. It really feels like "we" instituted VAR to catch mistakes, including missed penalties. Referees and VARs started calling a bunch of penalties that got missed for decades. People decided there were too many penalties. And, now, we'll... just ignore certain penalties?! It's amazing. I also note that the examples and language in Johnson's tweet leave open the possibility that some of these calls could be deemed incorrect via VAR? That part seems unclear, but several of his examples were called live on the field. Examples 1 and 4, for instance... is Johnson saying that VAR would overturn those on-field decisions? Because, if so, wow.
So stepping on the toe is not a foul but two inches higher on the foot is a yellow. That's a good sign. Maybe some people need a premier League defender to step on their foot and ask them if they thought that contact had consequence.
Some articles like this one: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...2023-after-success-of-secret-trials-9xmmtt3d2
Decision no.1 was very controversial here and widely judged as wrong. Go figure... What really p*sses me off about PGMOL is they are so ideologically vacuous - you can criticise FIFA for WC 2014, UEFA for their view on what a RC now is, but at least they have a clear vision for how incidents should be assessed and their games refereed. PGMOL do part of their job, the most important part for the PL who pays them £7mil a year, very well - their officials make the games exciting. But they don't have a clue how to assess incidents internally: it is so obvious that they are influenced by what is said on Sky Sports etc. It is pretty obvious that they realised that Johnson is valuable to them and these examples are internal PGMOL examples. So their response to the Wolves vs. Man City scene is so obviously just pandering to what they think people would want, would be least controversial. It is so frustratingly weak. And when this and club marks is your reality for refereeing, observers reluctantly supporting brave calls they should be (IMO) championing, it is extremely demotivating indeed.
And with almost all eyes on the EPL (and Paris)* until the next WC, it sends a really bad signal to the world. Because if the EPL does use this standard for penalties, it's going to be a completely different one in Qatar. I'd also suggest this will make life difficult for Taylor, Oliver, Kavanagh, etc. as they go back and forth between domestic and European competitions. Somehow, I think, England just managed to make things worse. They can message all they want about how this will be "more like EURO 2020," but it seems pretty obvious that if they execute VAR like they are saying they will, then that simply isn't true. *yes, I know "all" is an exaggeration, but the underlying point remains
When VAR was first implemented we all saw this coming. The sport was going to be fundamentally changed. I think we all saw that there would inevitably be an increase in penalties via VAR and without VAR because those are the incidents that referees miss the most. It seems that EPL/UEFA and other stakeholders aren't happy with this drastic change in the game which is fine. The issue is they want to fundamentally change what is a foul in the penalty versus what is not. There always was and always will be and should be a different bar for what constitutes a foul anywhere else on the pitch versus in the penalty area. We all agree with that logic. It seems that the EPL wants that bar to be even higher where it can't be supported via the Laws of the Game and our eyes. It's fine to ask referees to determine "was there contact and was there enough for an attacker to go down?" It's another to basically ask the referees to determine "was the attacker looking for it and basically is this a cheap penalty kick even though it's a foul?" By what Johnson said, is the EPL saying that any time an attacker is chasing a through-ball and gets a touch ahead of the keeper and "drags" his feet to "initiate" contact not a penalty kick anymore? So by their criteria, Robben's foul/dive versus Mexico in the 2014 World Cup should have been overturned via VAR? I'll be the first admit that Robben's dive/foul is such a cheap penalty and it sucks. It's a horrible way to decide a World Cup knockout match but it's a foul and you can't say it's not once given. Unless you want to ask IFAB to include in the laws of the game that "getting stopped in the penalty area is not enough for a penalty kick" you can't ask referees to not call this. Johnson made a great point in his thread about why VAR was such a success in the Euros and why it really can work at major tournaments. A: Your officials are the best of the best. B: The intensity of international football is much less versus domestic football so you only get about one reviewable incident per match at the Euros where in the EPL you get about three per match. It's why I'm more convinced then ever that the "juice is worth the squeeze" for VAR at major tournaments. The Euros and the last World Cup showed that it can work well and be a net positive. I just don't think it's worth the squeeze in domestic leagues. It's never going to go away, but how many VAR interventions do we see per week in either the EPL or MLS that we can definitely say "yeah glad they got VAR to fixed that embarrassing miss?" MLS is gonna be a 30 team league that will have about 450+ regular season matches with no promotion and relegation. Is the cost of implementing VAR and all the challenges that go with using VAR worth getting some marginal offside decisions right and the occasional missed penalty kick and missed red card corrected? For me the answer is clearly no. Especially when you take into account some of the negatives that VAR has brought upon the game. We now regularly see first half-time stoppage time of 7+ minutes due to VAR checks and reviews. Pre-VAR how often did you ever see any first half stoppage time be more than 3 minutes?
Your entire post was very well done. In my opinion, this is the only part where I disagree. When we are talking about the very top leagues with Champions League places riding on them, then the juice is probably worth the squeeze (by the way, great line!). I go back to the very first game of Project Restart. Had VAR worked properly when GLT didn't, Aston Villa may very well have gone down and Bournemouth stayed up. I don't have the right answer for this, but I don't know if it's to not do it all in any domestic league.
The opening goal is interesting. We never get an angle showing it was out for a corner, but if it was would it still be apart of the APP? Generally a clearance by a defender that immediately results in a continued attack does not reset app if I remember right. It would have been an incredible way to start the season after all the VAR discussion in England. https://streamwo.com/DS404gc
I get we aren’t giving soft penalties anymore, but isn’t this a foul anywhere else on the field? https://cdn-cf-east.streamable.com/...a1lV8BkB8A__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIEYUVEN4EVB2OKEQ
Yeah, I came here to look at the discussion on this play when I saw this posted on Twitter: Arsenal's frail, passive modern identity epitomized in one sequence:https://t.co/VCDWrmEWqP— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) August 13, 2021 I know that it's always fun when the underdog wins, but I don't understand how VAR didn't call that foul and cancel the goal...
Some clips from the game: 3' - Tackle incident https://streamable.com/uq3eb8 21' - Ball out of play before 1-0 goal? (APP?) https://streamable.com/62e75y 31' - Penalty area incident (tripping) https://streamable.com/ts51ej 54' - Deliberate stamp (if so, sanction?) or bad luck? https://streamable.com/hhl0l4 55' - DtR management https://streamable.com/5ty6eh 73' - Fair duel with the goalkeeper before 2-0 goal? https://streamable.com/l4vq5x 77' - Challenge incident https://streamable.com/dwxwzb +94' - Penalty area incident (tripping) https://streamable.com/p0ynto
Ignoring any of the incidents that were consequential to goals for a moment, I thought the lack of cards at 3’ and 77’ was a worrying signal.
And 18’ on Pogba falls into the same category. I wonder if the bar for reckless got raised by PGMOL without any fanfare.