I've been advocating for a challenge based system probably since the first VAR proposals were issued. I don't know how clear it needs to be that the current system is not fit for pupose.
Palace v Man City FAC
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Whether he would have been able to put the ball into the net afterwards might (for some) be debatable but he was denied an obvious goal scoring opportunity which is the key issue here.
As already stated, doesn't matter whether he scuffs it, balloons it over, falls over or tries to square it. The GKs handball has denied him the opportunity to score.
A challenge-based system (replacing current VAR protocol) wouldn't really work within a sport whose culture is based on cheating.
Even if it were implemented and (as some have suggested) teams only get one challenge per game - what then?
We'll still be back to the very scenarios which caused the clamour for VAR to exist in the first place ie. one team uses it's "challenge", VAR vindicates it and then later, in the 88th minute, a player deliberately handballs the ball either in their own penalty area or into their opponents net which the officials miss only this time there's no chance for a review?
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You could give then more than one challenge. Or give them one challenge, and if it is upheld, they get to keep the challenge.
But if they only have the one, use it and lose it, that's on them. It would then stop them challenging for the sake of it.
There will never be a perfect system. But for me, the challenge system would be a lot closer to it than the tosh we have now
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A lot of conjecture there about wide Haaland's touch might take the ball. And if the GK isn't sticking his hand out to try and commit a handling offence, Haaland doesn't need to try and nick it away from the "unnatural position" hand. (What if the GK had been stranded upfield and that had been the last defender handling it?)
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VAR to make a clear and obvious mistake on behalf of the onfield team means overturning a correct decision into an incorrect one. What he/it did here is not correct an incorrect decision. Onfeld team made a mistake, VAR didn't correct them.
The VAR protocol would have worked if the VAR person had done their job correctly. The protocol is not to blame here, the person is.
We have had VAR (person) errors in the past where clear SFPs were not corrected. The protocol was not blamed then. What makes this any different?
Any system relying on persons making subjective decisions is bound to go wrong sometimes.
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We won't hear the comms as the Mic'd Up show only covers the EPL, not the FA Cup.
The commentators, certainly those on ITV anyway, repeated what VAR were saying and that was the play was going too wide for it to be DOGSO. That is them saying there was no clear and obvious error, that by definition precludes them from recommending a review, and at that point they check complete it. We might not like how that process works, but that is absolutely how it operates at the moment as per the protocol.
If the referee plays on that is still them making a decision, the decision is they play on and don't blow the whistle.
Exactly ! Therefore, could VAR have intervened as playing on was a clear and obvious error ?
No because it was not in relation to one of the 4 reviewable situations according to the VAR.
This is like a situation where the referee misses a clear and obvious careless foul. It can't be reviewed as it's not a goal/no goal, red card, penalty/no penalty / mistaken identity situation.
We may not agree with the VARs interpretation but for sure he has acted well within the protocol.
No, because a missed handball isn't a reviewable decision. The process would have been ...
- Handball happens, on pitch officials either miss it or don't realise it was outside the penalty area.
- VAR see it and will have communicated that a check was under way. They aren't checking whether it was handball or not, that was obvious, they are checking whether the handling caused a DOGSO.
- They deem it wasn't DOGSO, and as per the comments the commentators heard this was because they felt play was going too wide.
- As they deemed it wasn't DOGSO there was no clear and obvious error, so all they could do was check complete it.
I would say far more annoying from a VAR perspective this weekend was the horrendous delay for the offside at West Ham, at almost 7 minutes long. And that wasn't down to the officials, rather PGMOL's / EPL's decision to develop their own semi-automated offside system rather than use one that has worked perfectly well in Europe for some time. It seems clear that it can't cope when players are in a crowd scene, which makes it all but useless at most set pieces, not a problem the other system seems to have.