It is really a complicated rule these days... no argument from me on that one. The law has changed so much over the last 4-5 years, you'd have to cite a specific incident... but if it's judged to be intentional, VAR can rule out a goal even if the handball in question occurs near center circle. Gonna depend on that assessment of "intentional". The "same" handball would be ruled to be unintentional, as it was here.
Can we all agree now? VAR is the shittiest thing ever created because it is a played by completely incompetent and humans.
*incompetent and seemingly corrupt humans. I think VAR is fine, in theory. But only with competent people in the booth. I'm as anti conspiracy theory as it gets, but today's non VAR decision on the disallowed goal... it's hard to not call that blatant corruption. No human can innocently error that badly. I just don't believe it's possible.
This is why I was upset about them not letting semi-automated offsides brought in... DIaz goal is corrected and given under that system. Curtis red is what it is, a shame and a hugely questionable call but not completely indefensible. Don't think Liverpool will be winning the appeal there, but will have to see what happens on that front.
Think it's a much closer to a "serious foul play" red than Mac, who as I recall was exerting very little force in comparison. So despite neither being a particularly good decision, I'd be more surprised by an overturn here... feels like there's more room in the law to justify this than there was for Mac. Hopefully I'm wrong. Very bad day for refs today. Pretty embarrassing stuff. Especially would love to hear what exactly went on for this offside decision? The apology statement calls out "significant human error"... no ********ing clue what that means.
https://x.com/DaleJohnsonESPN/status/1708230855330877465?s=20 VAR somehow thought he was confirming that the goal stood, not that he was looking to make sure Diaz was offside. Yiiiiiiikes. "As soon as Spurs take the free-kick for the offside, which they were set up for, the decision cannot be rolled back."
Then he has a duty to notify the ref immediately he realizes the mistake. And he didn't so I'll call BS on that too.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but perhaps there's no carve-out in the laws/protocols to correct this mistake once "check complete" has been said to head official and play has been restarted.
They can fix anything they want. Given that a penalty can be reviewed and given AFTER the other team goes up field and scores - wiping out that goal and then resetting it for a penalty.
One of the worst aspects of these awful refereeing errors is that even though the PGMOL can acknowledge an error at the end of the day there is no resolution available to the team which has been disadvantaged and this is what makes supporters fume. Next game at Anfield I wouldn't want to be one of the game officials because they will feel the anger and frustration of the fans first hand up close. It won't be pleasant.
I've thought about this for hours now. Unless PGMOL is scared of outright corruption/cheating being revealed, OR are worried they'll be shown to be incompetent tw@ts, there is ZERO reason to not have full transparency on VAR decisions like they have in rugby. Zero.
I believe so... I think that carve-out actually does exist, believe it or not. The issue isn't about giving excuses IMO... it's about claims which have evidence, and claims which don't. "This VAR is biased"... I'd need to see evidence for that. I mean, it's not impossible. But to me it makes a lot more sense to think of this as a guy being incompetent, instead of him being anti-Liverpool to the point that he's going to blatantly ******** up his job.
This might be the decision which pushes them in that direction... and I agree with you, overall. Rugby has live audio of their VAR decisions in real-time during matches? Once a check is complete on an offside decision, and play has resumed, I don't know that there is a carve-out which allows them to go back and re-check whether that call is correct later in that match. If you're saying you do know they have that power in the protocol, please post me to the part of the laws/protocols that has that info.
To b fair tho Klopp, he's been magnanimous and praised the referees for accepting the mistake ( I assume they saw him in person) even admitting that few people do so including himself and players. I think what it does shed a light on is the incompetence of those running the system, not necessarily the system itslef.
The referee knew immediately that the wrong call had been made according to Neville (they can see things from the gantry that we can't) but he was frozen or just not competent enough to call the play back.
VAR is a disaster, I remember when they first talked it up it was supposed to eradicate all mistakes and lead to peace on Earth when in actual fact there are as many howlers today as there ever were without it. I'm not sure if some of the officials are just bent but that's what it feels like when you have a supposed flawless technology and those using it are still getting key match deciding decisions blatantly wrong, you could see Diaz was onside with just a quick glance at the freezed frame. It's not just the obvious mistakes either, it's subtle ones like when they ask the referee out of nowhere to look at an insignificant shirt pull in the box that leads to a penalty being given and then when the same exact thing happens down the other end of the pitch 5 mins later they totally ignore it. I'm not sure what the solution is, my club has received two apologies from PGMOL for mistakes that have cost us points already this season and that's without VAR. Perhaps AI is the future providing betting rings can't influence it.
I’ve searched for a good example of the TMO working well in rugby and this is the best I can find. A few things. This video is 7 minutes long and shows 2 TMO incidents. On both occasions, I think it’s fair to say that while the correct decision was reached, both took longer than they would at international level. The offense is tackling the head, so to speak. You can’t target the head in rugby, intentionally or not. A yellow is a 10 minute sinbin, a red is the same in football. Also remember, there are a lot more moving parts on the field in rugby. The Jones red was simply two people coming together. Both of the below examples involve a lot more than two people coming together, but, crucially, there is discussion about intent, etc. Cross posted on the Spurs thread.
We're only 7 games into this season and have already received 2 apologies from the PGMOL. *still fuming here*
OK, so they get the replay in the grounds, but not the conversation. So that's for broadcast. And the match announcers talk during it too? Although they did shut up a bit when the reviewers were doing their things. Anyways, I like it. Makes sense to me.
Assuming you’re talking about the rugby videos. Yes, the entire conversation between the ref and the TMO officials are broadcast lest there be any doubt about how the decision was reached. Obviously the TMO only works in stadia with big screens. The TMO has access to the feed to the big screen and he replays the footage there for the ref.
Gary Neville HATES Liverpool. his bias is glaringly obvious in virtually every broadcast / game he's involved in. But ... listen to what he said about yesterday: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/you-cant-see-home-gary-27819837 Sky Sports were forced to apologise as they too were in the dark about the ruling against Diaz's goal. Typically the broadcaster can access images used by officials with lines drawn on by hand to determine offsides, though they were not available. And it turned out they did in fact not exist, as VAR Darren England and his assistant Dan Cook made a 'significant human error' in their roles as the duo failed to intervene and cancel out the on-field decision. PGMOL released an apology for this, meaning the goal should have stood. As this was released whilst Sky were still live on air, presenter Kelly Cates read this out to pundits Neville and former Liverpool midfielder Jamie Redknapp. "No, no. Kelly, seriously," Neville responded in disbelief. "Yes, yes. That's what has happened," replied Cates. The ex-Manchester United full-back continued: "No, no. At the time I thought we get VAR up on the commentary box before anybody else does and I thought 'that's onside'. Then all of a sudden you just hear in you ear [the goal has been ruled out]. "We get the pictures up in the gantry - the commentary from VAR officials to the referee - and you get 'check complete'. You're like, 'what?' No lines. It was too quick and something was obviously wrong. "That is unbelievable. That is a bad one. A really, really [bad mistake]. That is very significant - At this point Redknapp cut in, querying: "It makes you wonder how many others [decisions VAR officials have got wrong]." "Oh I know," Neville agreed. "The last few weeks I just thought haven't been right and I've been asking have we got the right cameras at these stadiums? We never seem to be in line anymore. We've always been in line. "We have the lines on the pitch. By the way, these groundsmen have laser, pinpoint accuracy. They never get a line wrong. When you look at the lines on the pitch, they're so accurate. "I've defended VAR and offsides as being a matter of fact, but there's been two or three in the last few weeks where I thought behind the scenes that hasn't felt right - the angle's aren't right, have they drawn the lines on [correctly?] "It was all too quick, it wasn't right. At the time I was like 'right then, we'll move on', and I actually went down to the director who said they'll have definitely drawn the lines on at Stockley Park. I went 'how can they have done? It was too quick? Have they drawn the lines on?' "We obviously know the explanation of how they've got it wrong" Again, Redknapp interjected: "And it doesn't make you feel any better if you're the Liverpool manager - how do you feel about that? That's a horrendous error." "That is a horrendous one because I can see by times you might have loads of players in the way, they might have drawn it on the wrong shoulder, that is clearly Romero's foot and clearly Diaz's shoulder. It is clear to everybody," Neville agreed with his co-pundit for the second time. "There's only two players, loads of space, it's not like there's a collection of players in line but I still keep saying over these last few weeks something hasn't been right. We always used to have cameras in line with every point in the stadium and it's almost as if now there are no cameras in line. "What are they doing? They're picking the wrong cameras to even do the lines on. It's just weird. I've said the same thing, they're picking the wrong cameras to actually put the lines on. Something doesn't feel right." After seeing Dale Johnson's explanation of how the officials came to the decision, Neville would later add on Twitter: "I’m pretty sure if you look at the refs face they were thinking of taking the game back and say it was a goal. There is a moment where the ref looks sick! On the gantry ( you can’t see this at home ) the VAR screen was locked on the offside decision whilst the game went on. They knew pretty much straight away but for some reason didn’t go back or can’t through rules go back!!" TV images moments after Spurs took their free-kick showed referee Hooper appearing to listen to his earpiece and lifting his whistle towards his mouth, before hesitating and allowing play to continue.