Referees Mic'd up - Refs Call

Thought I start a thread to highlight about the "Refs call" terminology and the potential flaws that comes with it.

In the Man united Spurs game, the red card to Fernandes was not overturned because despite the VAR seeing the challenge wasn't with the studs, he just went with the "refs call" despite the referee never actually seen it and the assistant was the one who advised on the red card. I just feel this is the classic case of a VAR using "refs call" as a factor of overriding the LOTG and we see an error of judgement by the VAR as a result.

In the Newcastle City game, Webb says if the referee didn't give a penalty(and I assume would book Gordon for diving) then the VAR wouldn't intervene because of refs call yet VAR backs the referee decision of penalty because there seemed to be contact in his opinion which means you could have two similar situations in the same game resulting in two totally different sanctions all because of those two words of "refs call". This is what would drive pundits/fans mad because it can't be a penalty and a dive, it's either one or the other surely?

In the Forest/Fulham game, the referee waved played on after a potential Fulham penalty but he admitted he couldn't see any contact yet going by the audio of the VAR, he only intervened because the referee didn't see it and if the ref call was no penalty and thought there wasn't significant contact, he would stand by the refs call.

Personally I'm not a fan of this refs call, it's just a fancy way of how they did VAR in the very first season where they intervened on virtually nothing and the only difference is Howard Webb allows the usage of monitors. As for the arguement we don't want "re-refereeing" well we don't see that because the referee has the right to reject a VAR review. If a VAR thinks the original decision is wrong in law, then he should intervene and not justify referees call just because it might split opinion amongst pundits/fans or he can see why the referee made that decision.

Refs call but check complete without the referee seeing it ....

Paul_10 said:

VAR using "refs call" as a factor of overriding the LOTG and we see an error of judgement by the VAR as a result.

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Which part of lotg was overridden by VAR?

Which judgment of VAR had error in it?

"Ref's call" is a short term way of saying VAR does not think the referee has made a clear and obvious error.

Paul_10 said:

Personally I'm not a fan of this refs call, it's just a fancy way of how they did VAR in the very first season where they intervened on virtually nothing and the only difference is Howard Webb allows the usage of monitors. As for the arguement we don't want "re-refereeing" well we don't see that because the referee has the right to reject a VAR review. If a VAR thinks the original decision is wrong in law, then he should intervene and not justify referees call just because it might split opinion amongst pundits/fans or he can see why the referee made that decision.

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It’s very rare a referee at that level is wrong in law.

If a decision splits opinion or the VAR can see rationale/justification behind the decision, that would suggest it isn’t C&O………

I think the issue here is where the bar/tolerance should be for clear and obvious. The only solution for that is to get rid of VAR altogether (not gonna happen). Otherwise no matter where that bar is, there would be some who would complain. And this forum is a perfect example. EPL had a part season when VAR basically enabled re-refereeing every KMI, and other times with lower bars than now, the complaining was about too much interference.

Runner Ref said:

It’s very rare a referee at that level is wrong in law.

If a decision splits opinion or the VAR can see rationale/justification behind the decision, that would suggest it isn’t C&O………

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This is still not and never will be the required burden of proof for VAR, and it's becoming a regular incorrect myth on here. One/a small number of dissenting referees doesn't mean a decision isn't automatically "not-C&O" - it can often just mean those referees are wrong.

GraemeS said:

This is still not and never will be the required burden of proof for VAR, and it's becoming a regular incorrect myth on here. One/a small number of dissenting referees doesn't mean a decision isn't automatically "not-C&O" - it can often just mean those referees are wrong.

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But who is to say they’re wrong? If there’s large sways either way to say it’s correct and large sways the other way to say it’s wrong- that was suggest something is not clear nor obvious.

On the Fernandes one, Sky did a poll to say whether people thought it was correct or not. The results were around 32% red and 68% yellow- is that enough to say it must have been clearly and obviously wrong? That’s way over a quarter of people swaying away from others.

My belief is that VAR was brought in to help with incidents like Henry vs Ireland. Now it has morphed into people either moaning that the game is being re-refereed or VAR isn’t getting involved enough.

Runner Ref said:

But who is to say they’re wrong? If there’s large sways either way to say it’s correct and large sways the other way to say it’s wrong- that was suggest something is not clear nor obvious.

On the Fernandes one, Sky did a poll to say whether people thought it was correct or not. The results were around 32% red and 68% yellow- is that enough to say it must have been clearly and obviously wrong? That’s way over a quarter of people swaying away from others.

My belief is that VAR was brought in to help with incidents like Henry vs Ireland. Now it has morphed into people either moaning that the game is being re-refereed or VAR isn’t getting involved enough.

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I mean, regardless of any other discussion, I'm not sure how much value a refereeing forum should really be putting on a poll of non-referees, any undeclared number of which may have been United fans (or for that matter, fans of clubs delighted to see Fernandes punished).

The standard of proof required is "Clear and Obvious". That's it. In the opinion of one person, is the decision clearly and obviously wrong? Trying to add in a bunch of other criteria based on polling of unknown quantities of people and with an unknown threshold is adding more complexity and confusion, not removing it.

As you say in the question I've bolded, even you who has found this poll and included it in your reply to try and make your point can't tell me if that proportion of disagreement makes the decision C&O!

So now, instead of answering the question "is it C&O wrong?", we find ourselves discussing what level of proof and disagreement is needed. Which is a far worse and more complicated question than just going "In your opinion, is that C&O wrong?", which is what we should be doing. And which is exactly why trying to claim that some nebulous idea of "split decision means it can't be C&O" is not a helpful approach - and importantly, isn't part of the VAR protocol.

one said:

Which part of lotg was overridden by VAR?

Which judgment of VAR had error in it?

"Ref's call" is a short term way of saying VAR does not think the referee has made a clear and obvious error.

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In the Man United incident, the LOTG of what is a red/yellow card in a tackle was not followed because the VAR just basically backed up the referees decision. Bankes acknowledged it was not with studs, didn't seem to clarify his own question whether he raked down the leg and did not even question whether it was just reckless, just went to the default of referees call and got the decision wrong.

Handball is going to be an big issue because there has not been a single handball penalty given by VAR so far(even though imo they should of in the Wolves Forest game with Chris Wood handling) where I suspect refs call will be used as justification not to get involved even though in the LOTG handball would be the right decision. I also don't get Howard Webb's comments there has been too many handball penalties in the English game, the stats will no doubt show there has been less handball penalties compared to European leagues in England so there has always been somewhat a higher bar anyways but the bar is going to be so high, defenders may aswell have there arms really outstretched and don't have to worry about conceding a pen because if your close enough to the attacker they are not going to penalise it.

GraemeS said:

I mean, regardless of any other discussion, I'm not sure how much value a refereeing forum should really be putting on a poll of non-referees, any undeclared number of which may have been United fans (or for that matter, fans of clubs delighted to see Fernandes punished).

The standard of proof required is "Clear and Obvious". That's it. In the opinion of one person, is the decision clearly and obviously wrong? Trying to add in a bunch of other criteria based on polling of unknown quantities of people and with an unknown threshold is adding more complexity and confusion, not removing it.

As you say in the question I've bolded, even you who has found this poll and included it in your reply to try and make your point can't tell me if that proportion of disagreement makes the decision C&O!

So now, instead of answering the question "is it C&O wrong?", we find ourselves discussing what level of proof and disagreement is needed. Which is a far worse and more complicated question than just going "In your opinion, is that C&O wrong?", which is what we should be doing. And which is exactly why trying to claim that some nebulous idea of "split decision means it can't be C&O" is not a helpful approach - and importantly, isn't part of the VAR protocol.

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My point of the fan poll was to suggest that no everyone within the footballing world thinks it was a red card. After all, we all want 'what football expects' right?

But that's (bit in bold) my point, no one knows what C&O actually is. I had this whole debate on another thread last week, as the answer was deemed to be C&O is what football expects (whatever that means).

If the decision is split, surely it then can't be clearly or obviously wrong? For something to be obvious, you need a large consensus to see it, otherwise, how is it clear or obvious? We've had this discussion on here before this SG1/2 officials aren't particularly strong at detecting what SFP is and isn't.

I personally think yellow was correct decision, but not convinced it was 100% wrong

Part of the reason no one knows what C&O is is because people start bringing nonsense like fan polls and unreasonably high bars into it when trying to work it out.

GraemeS said:

Part of the reason no one knows what C&O is is because people start bringing nonsense like fan polls and unreasonably high bars into it when trying to work it out.

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So if C&O isn’t in relation to fans, and it can’t be judged by ourselves on a referee forum, who is it up to define what it is?

Runner Ref said:

So if C&O isn’t in relation to fans, and it can’t be judged by ourselves on a referee forum, who is it up to define what it is?

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Ask IFAB. I can promise you, they won't give you an answer based on percentage of referees who think it's wrong.

Ref's call is the equivalent of umpires call in cricket... both are a bit of a cop out (in cricket it's because they allow for errors in the technology, in football it appears to allow for errors in referees)

The issue for me is that ref's call is subjective and as @RefGod has quite rightly said, the decision of "ref's call" without the referee seeing what they have potentially seen/missed is a very slippery slope.

Is it a C&O mistake... clearly in the eye of the panel it was and that puts CK and VAR in a bit of an embarrrassing situation that a 2 minute VAR review could've potentially resolved.

Panel vote was 2-1. With the dissenting vote saying it was the wrong decision but didn't meet the obviously wrong threshold.

The Ginger Ref said:

Ref's call is the equivalent of umpires call in cricket... both are a bit of a cop out (in cricket it's because they allow for errors in the technology, in football it appears to allow for errors in referees)

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I feel that it should be more like the "soft signal" that umpires use to have to give when sending an umpire review for a catch etc. Therefore, if a decision can't be reached or they can't be 99% sure, the stick with the decision on-field. Assume that's what the referees call is meant to be like but not sure it's being fully utilised like that.

Going to keep saying it, 90% of decisions in football are subjective, so VAR is always going to be controversial. Said it before it came in, said it after it came in, and I'll be saying it for ever more as when you show a video clip to a room full of senior referees you will rarely get a unanimous decision. If they referred every potentially wrong decision for review the games would go on for much longer and be very stop start and people would soon be claiming that VAR is ruining the game (even more than that is claimed today). Scrap VAR and people will be back to claiming that referees are ruining the game by making bad match changing decisions. They have to try and find a middle ground and that is what the current C&O / high bar / referee's call is. Not perfect, but I do think VAR intervention has been far less intrusive this season in the EPL.

I fully realise that I am flying against popular opinion, but I still have sympathy with VAR on the Fernandes red card. Contact wasn't with the studs, and didn't have a lot of force, but there's still no doubt in my mind that he tried to hurt Maddison as he kicked out in a secondary motion well away from the direction of the ball. I'm just not sure he should escape punishment because he was so incompetent he even messed that action up, especially when there was come contact, and I can understand why VAR felt with the current directives they had to stick at referee's call.