Very much agree. It plaintively obvious. As I've said, the Refs are not incompetent, that assertion would be absurd. But the way in which VAR is being used is humiliating. It must be very mentally punishing 'sic. for Refs.' Can you imagine what it must be like to get slaughtered in public every other week? Largely, through no fault of your own?
I've said all along, 'fundamentally, I'm not against technology'. But VAR is so broken, I can't see it being fixed. It needs rebuilding pretty much from scratch
I'm hopeful that VAR can be fixed, but I'm not optimistic. The big issue is that it's being used for subjective calls, and I'm not sure how you get around that.
For me (and I stress that this STRICTLY MY OPINION), I want to only see fouls like the examples below reversed because of VAR.
1) The Henry non-handball call against Ireland.
2) The Portugal-France game where the ball was clearly over the line (I know VAR and GLT wasn't used in that game).
3) (I think I have the teams right) the Liverpool offside against West Ham where the Liverpool player was 2-3 yards off and the AR was caught out of position.
4) The red card in the Ukraine Euro game where live action made it hard to see the play was a send-off, but VAR made it pretty plain to see.
5) The from-behind challenge on KDB in the Portugal-Belgium Euro game (wasn't a send-off on the field, but should have been an on-field review)
6) The Hummels send-off in the Dortmund-Ajax UCL game - that should have been downgraded to a yellow card.
The issue is that my "bar" is different from others' "bar". I get that different organizations will have training, etc. to determine what's a clear and obvious foul, but it's subjective. Here are some fouls that I know people were screaming for VAR to overturn, but I don't think they are clear and obvious "enough".
1) The send-off in the Spain-Switzerland match (I thought Oliver got the send-off right, others disagreed, but regardless of the on-field call I would have supported it not being overturned).
2) The Sterling penalty in the Euro semi (I didn't think it was a penalty, but there was enough doubt to not overturn it).
But the issue is that no one really knows how or why certain reviews do or don't happen. The only way I can see that changing is through the VAR-referee team communication being broadcast (or at least being available after the fact), but I'm not sure we'll get there.
There is very little doubt in my mind that VAR does result in a subconscious decision to "go soft" on sanctions and see if VAR has enough to overturn. That shouldn't be the case, but it is at the present time in my opinion.