I agree that once VAR operates seamlessly within the sport it will be a good thing. The main problem I have is that the "growing pains", which even you admit to, will be happening during the World Cup Finals! IOW, we sacrifice the WC finals to be part of the trial phase (along with the Confed Cup and a couple Youth WCs) so that the system can be running effectively and efficiently in time for Watford v Aston Villa & Eibar v Espanyol in 2019. The reverse timeline would seem to have been the logical way to go.
Let's see how much of an inconvenience and pain it will be before preemptively complaining about it. I feel that way about most issues in the FIFA forum. People seem to complain before the thing has even been officially implemented.
I'd like VAR to not slow down the game. But I'd also like it to encourage players not to cheat because they know it will catch them. And I'd like it to correct obvious errors. But it is a balance, because I don't want to end up like our North American based sports where too much is reviewed and games have no momentum and take too long.
This us being rushed through on purpose. If this would've been done in the proper manner the fans would have time to think about the long term consequences to the game and realize that in this "new PC world" the whole purpose of this change is to benefit the "soft" teams(putting it nicely). ...while watching France-England Six Nations rugby match... That's a sport I could get into... And they have VAR
That's some BS way to think about it. You say benefit "soft teams" but in reality it's to increase % of correct calls making the end result fairer.
Except for the fact that it has been implemented and we know already that VAR gets off to a rough start wherever its been introduced (see FA cup and 2017 youth WCs).
Rough? There was nothing rough in their beginnings. A bit too slow, but in general the majority of issues people had was based on exaggerating minor issues by people that just don't like the concept of VAR, full stop.
Wait till you see a game with a ref from Vanuatu and linemen from Uganda and the Salomon Islands in the WC. 2002 will be remembered as the "good old times".
As I posted in another section this will help the fans and others at the stadium get used to VAR and hopefully clear up confusion: https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.044a0b523b05
I hope the communication is relatively quick. We had an incident in our league a few weeks back where a penalty decision was reviewed and after a long delay (around 4 minutes) the penalty stood and a player from the side that received the penalty got a straight red card. I was watching on TV and it had me totally confused and it wasn't until the half time break (which was only a couple of minutes later) that it was explained. The penalty review was pretty quick and given the OK. While that was happening there was a bit of an argument between two players and it the referee requested a review of that and it turned out that one player stomped on the other players foot while they were standing next to each other. The commentators weren't aware of the second incident at all at the time. Correct decisions were made, which was good, but there were a lot of confused spectators and I think most at the game wouldn't have known what was going on.
VAR continues to cover itself in glory. The A-League Grand Final was effectively decided by ... wait for it... "Software Failure" https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2018/05/06/var-failed-grand-final-due-malfunction-admits-ffa J
"In your country you use software. In my country software uses us!" - My best Yakov Smirnoff impression
NAh. There will be no "hand of God" and biting of players without cards and proper punishments. IT will change the World Cup for the better in my opinion. Even though there will be some growing pains.
For once we agree on something. It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario and at this point there is no turning back. Hopefully the kinks can be worked out very soon.
I'm not sure which leagues you follow. But VAR has been a disaster in MLS, IMO. The notion that the "right' call always gets made is a myth, as it ever was. Balls glancing off of fingernails get called more often for penalties now. The fouls that led up to it still get routinely ignored. So we're just taking more fairness away from defenders and giving referees even more discretion (something that refs already have far too much of). I'll be honest, VAR has made me deeply question my ability to watch MLS. I'm 2 or 3 shitty calls from completely giving up on the league. That would have been unthinkable for me a year ago, and I've been following the league since before they started up.
I don't know if you know just how VAR works but it is essentially another tool or resource for the main Referee. He always has the final say on whether or not a call should be reviewed. The VAR officials just suggest to him if he should take another look at a controversial call that may be very important to the result of the game. I don't think that is a bad thing when it comes to the good of the game, Yes, there are some growing pains since it is a new technology that has been implemented. But that is like any technology that is being introduced. There are some bugs to be worked out but that does not mean that it is a bad thing to use and implement. It just means you have to be patient with the technology and how it evolves.
Handballs was one of the first things I was worried about the day I learned that VAR would be used for more than just black & white decisions. Slo-mo replays tend to make it look more intentional than it probably was. Whatever the ref thought it was in real time is probably as good as it'll get. Showing him replays only increases the chance that the wrong call is made, IMO. Unless he was looking the other way and simply didn't see anything. With regular fouls VAR could really help though as its just too difficult to determine if there was contact a lot of the time.
When it comes to hand balls and penalties intention really has little to do with it. A penalty can be called even if the intention is not clearly there. It has to do with is the arm/hand in a natural or unnatural position when the ball makes contact.