VAR

Filbo65

Thatched roofer
Funny – I was only saying to (a bored) Mrs Filbo last weekend that any decision reviewed by the ref at the pitch-side monitor will be overturned. From The Athletic today...

Why the referee going to the pitchside monitor is not what it seems​

By Stuart James and Luke Bosher 6h ago
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Time to dispel a myth or, as one leading figure in the industry puts it, “to let the genie out the bottle”.
What sort of conversation do you think has taken place with the video assistant referee (VAR) to prompt the match referee to stop the game and walk over to the pitchside monitor to review an incident?
For a lot of football fans, the assumption would probably be that the VAR, after watching footage back, believes that the referee’s interpretation of an incident may not be quite right and that the man in the middle would benefit from a second look. In other words, everything hangs in the balance until the referee has had a chance to watch a few replays and come to his own conclusion.
The reality, The Athletic learned this week, is rather different.
Would it surprise you if we told you that, deep down, the referee knows what decision he is going to make long before looking at the pitchside monitor? What about if we told you that even you, the football fan watching at home on the sofa, can figure out what is going to happen next?
There is no need to wait for that imaginary television screen to be drawn. The clues are there when you go back over the list of incidents this season when the pitchside monitor has been used:
September 12 — Crystal Palace v Southampton
51st minute — Jon Moss goes to monitor to check Kyle Walker-Peters tackle, overturns red card and downgrades to yellow
September 19 — Man United v Crystal Palace
70th minute — Martin Atkinson goes to monitor to check Victor Lindelof handball, overturns decision and gives penalty to Palace
September 20 — Newcastle v Brighton
87th minute — Kevin Friend goes to monitor to check Yves Bissouma “tackle” on Jamal Lewis, overturns yellow card and upgrades to red
September 20 — Southampton v Tottenham
87th minute — David Coote (below) goes to monitor to check Matt Doherty handball, overturns decision and gives penalty to Southampton
September 20 — Chelsea v Liverpool
45th minute — Paul Tierney goes to monitor to check foul by Andreas Christensen on Sadio Mane and upgrades it from a yellow to red card
September 26 — Crystal Palace v Everton
37th minute — Kevin Friend goes to monitor to check Joel Ward handball, overturns decision and gives penalty to Everton
September 26 — Brighton v Man United
48th minute — Chris Kavanagh goes to monitor to check Paul Pogba foul on Aaron Connolly, overturns decision and rescinds Brighton penalty
Injury time — Kavanagh goes to monitor to check Neal Maupay handball, overturns decision and gives penalty to United
September 27 — Tottenham v Newcastle
Injury time — Peter Bankes goes to monitor to check Eric Dier handball, overturns his decision and gives penalty to Newcastle
September 28 — Fulham v Aston Villa
56th minute — Stuart Attwell goes to monitor to check foul on Ezri Konsa in build-up to Bobby Decordova-Reid goal, overturns decision and disallows Fulham goal
In short, the referee’s original decision has been overturned every time the pitchside monitor has been used in the Premier League — and last season in other competitions for that matter. It is, as one well-placed source puts it, “a fait accompli” and is likely to continue to be because of the way the VAR protocol, which was devised and written by David Elleray, the International Football Association Board’s technical director, works.
“There’s this popular misconception among the public that they think the VAR has looked at, let’s say a handball that’s 50/50, and said, ‘Mr Referee, you might want to have another look at that.’ But that couldn’t be further from the truth because that is not allowed under IFAB’s protocol,” the source explains.
According to that protocol, on-field reviews should be mainly used for subjective decisions, such as the intensity of a foul challenge, interference at offside or handball considerations. The Premier League reinforces that message and, in many ways, raises the threshold. “There will be a high bar for VAR intervention on subjective decisions to maintain the pace and intensity of Premier League matches”, it notes in the Premier League’s VAR guidelines.
In those subjective scenarios, the VAR essentially has two choices, to either support the on-field decision, or to recommend to the referee that he views the incident on the pitch-side monitor.
Although the final decision always rests with the on-field referee, as outlined in the laws of the game, that isn’t as straightforward as it sounds because of the way VAR operates. A cornerstone of VAR is that it will only be used for “clear and obvious errors” or “serious missed incidents”. So the first thing that a referee thinks when the voice in his ear recommends the use of an on-field review is that his original decision was wrong. It is certainly not the case that the VAR is unsure and inviting the referee to take another look to try to clear things up; the VAR is insinuating that a clear and obvious error has been made.
In IFAB’s VAR handbook, which is quite a read, it also goes on to say that the on-field referee can use the pitchside monitor if they feel it will “assist match control/player management or will help sell a decision”.
A good example of the latter is when Jarred Gillett, the EFL referee, took charge of his last game in the Australian A-League. A goal was reviewed in that match because of a contentious offside decision that was made complicated by the fact that the ball glanced off the head of one of the defending players in the build-up. “Do you want me to come and have a look to sell it?” Gillett, who wore a microphone for the whole game, said to the VAR, who felt that the goal should stand. “I think I’d better. Because the players are expecting it.”
Those incidents, however, are few and far between. In the vast majority of cases, and certainly all of those in the Premier League this season, the referee is walking across to the pitchside monitor because the VAR is recommending an on-field review. Or, to put it another way, indirectly telling the referee he has made the wrong call.
It is possible, of course, that a referee (probably one of the more experienced officials) will at some point go over to the pitchside monitor, watch the replays and stand by their original decision, which they are perfectly entitled to do under the VAR protocol. By doing so, though, they will be openly casting doubt on the judgment of the VAR’s ability to identify a clear and obvious error, which means that the VAR thinks that the on-field referee got the decision wrong in the first place, and that the on-field referee thinks that the VAR was wrong to recommend a review. A bit of a mess, really.
There is a feeling that if that was going to happen with an incident this season, it would have been during Brighton’s 3-2 home defeat against Manchester United last month, when Kavanagh, the referee, awarded a penalty after Pogba tangled with Connolly. It was a highly debatable decision — Rio Ferdinand, covering the game for BT Sport, was adamant that Kavanagh was right to point to the spot — and certainly not clear and obvious that a mistake had been made by the referee. Kavanagh, however, backed down after watching replays of the incident and the penalty was rescinded.
Looking back, maybe it’s not that surprising that it took a long time for pitchside monitors to be used in the Premier League. Mike Riley, the general manager of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), discouraged officials from doing so during the first half of last season. Indeed, it wasn’t until the FA Cup third round in January, when Michael Oliver upgraded a yellow card for Luka Milivojevic to a red, that a referee made history (that’s how it was reported in the media at the time) by using a pitchside monitor in English football.
Some would like to see the remit of the VAR changed, so that there can be more of an open discussion with the referee (which is probably what a lot of football fans imagine happens) before the pitchside monitor is used, bearing in mind decisions aren’t always clear-cut. “Sometimes it would be better to say to the ref, ‘I’ve had a look from a couple of angles, I’m undecided but see what you think.’ That’s dead against IFAB’s VAR protocol,” the source adds. “But I think there’s room to say to the ref, ‘You might want to look at that again.’”
In a way, there is something far more credible, authentic and acceptable about the match referee making a decision after viewing it back himself, as opposed to it being made by somebody who is nowhere near the stadium, and that is probably why most football fans welcomed the news that pitchside monitors were going to be used. Like many things in life, though, it is not quite what it seems.
 
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