Liv City - Klopp and Pep for maybe the last time

[Quarryref]

I think the problem here is the VAR protocol. Many people have looked at the incident and thought that the decision was clearly and obviously wrong whereas others (including the VAR) have looked at it and thought 'I see nothing clearly and obviously wrong with that'.

The problem is that "clear and obvious error" is so poorly defined that nobody knows where the threshold is. Last season, referees used a lower threshold despite the protocol being worded exactly as it is this season. UEFA seems to use an entirely different threshold. This will continue to happen until the "clear and obvious error" threshold is replaced with something else.

... but you can't make the problem go away.

Redefine 'clear and obvious' or use different words and you just create a different arbitrary line with arguments about what is either side of it.

The only way of solving it is to go with simple right or wrong, but we know many decisions in football are subjective so you are just substituting one person's opinion for another - whether that is better or (I would argue) worse, it still doesn't solve the problem.

As long as you have VAR intervening on subjective calls you have this problem.

 

[socal lurker]

As long as you have VAR intervening on subjective calls you have this problem.

Which is exactly why many sports entirely or largely limit video review to objective calls.

 

[RustyRef]

With all due respect, that's a nonsense reason to try and shut down discussion. Apart from anything else, most of the first page is either people agreeing with it being a missed penalty or discussing other incidents - only one dissenting post from @RustyRef . And similarly on page 2, you have a single dissenting poster making up around a third of the posts, but a clear majority seeing it as a missed penalty.

If a couple of dissenting voices are enough that you declare the conversation should be shut down, why are we bothering with VAR? Or a referee discussion forum for that matter?


So just to be clear, your stance is that this Nani example should have been a red card because of the force involved, but take that force away as with Doku and it doesn't just drop to a yellow or even foul only, but all the way down to "no foul"?

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm not necessarily saying that I don't think it was a foul, I'm saying it isn't enough for a C&O error. It might have been in previous seasons, but this season, and certainly since November, there have hardly been any reviews for penalties that weren't potential handling. They just aren't getting involved, guess we will have to wait and see what Howard Webb says about it.

My point on the Nani one is it was like comparing chalk with cheese. One was in the area one wasn't, one involved very minimal force the other used used a significant amount of force.

 

[RustyRef]

Which is exactly why many sports entirely or largely limit video review to objective calls.

And which is why football was always going to have a problem with VAR. I keep coming back to sports like cricket and rugby where the vast majority of decisions are objective, in football the only thing that is always objective is offside, almost everything else is subjective.

There was unfortunately this utopia that VAR would fix everything, and that was never going to be the case. I heard someone describe it to Brexit last week, both haven't brought about the perfection that people thought they might, and both have introduced significant unforeseen side effects. Made me chuckle.

 

[GraemeS]

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm not necessarily saying that I don't think it was a foul, I'm saying it isn't enough for a C&O error. It might have been in previous seasons, but this season, and certainly since November, there have hardly been any reviews for penalties that weren't potential handling. They just aren't getting involved, guess we will have to wait and see what Howard Webb says about it.

My point on the Nani one is it was like comparing chalk with cheese. One was in the area one wasn't, one involved very minimal force the other used used a significant amount of force.

And at the risk of repeating myself, what about that isn't clearly a foul? Remember that we only need to reach a "careless" threshold to award a penalty and you're again using red/yellow card language rather than foul/no foul language. You've persuaded me Doku shouldn't have seen red - but the boot is clearly high, he clearly makes contact with the opponents chest. And even if it were true, getting the ball first isn't relevant mitigation, it's still careless at least.

The only reason this isn't an obvious overturn is an artificially high clarity requirement, which is something the PL has repeatedly caused themselves problems with in the past. If you could show this clip to IFAB the season before VAR is introduced, they'd say it's a textbook example of a mistake their new system should be able to easily fix.

 

[one]

I think the main problem is that in order for VAR to intervene on a subjective decision, s/he has to make another subjective decision themselves. What is clear and obvious is subjective no matter how well you define it.

It doesn't help when different leagues have different bars on what is C&O. Even worse when the same league moves their bar from seasons to season or even mid season. EPL has been the worse at it. I have no doubt in my mind this would have been referred previous seasons.

BTW, this thread has too many summaries. Can someone summarise the summaries for me

 

[GraemeS]

The vast majority of decisions in rugby could be subjective - but they're made objective by sensible and thorough rule-writing, and laws that don't cling to historical aspects of the sport. Football could take this approach if they wanted.

Rugby referees know what a high tackle is because it's defined in law. Football referees have to guess - sometimes the shin is high, sometimes the ankle is if the angle is right, but also sometimes studs in the chest isn't a high tackle for some reason? And none of that is written in the book, what's expected just has to be inferred from "case law".

Or if that's too much like hard work, the other sensible approach would be to follow the lead of other sports where decisions are often subjective - hockey or NFL for example - where a review system is challenge-based. The final decision is still subjective, but the subjective "does this need to be reviewed" decision is taken out of the referees hands and given to the competing teams. But let's not get distracted by going too far down that path again!

 

[george.g]

where a review system is challenge-based

This is something that’s been brandished by fans and on this forum many times. It would take the decision of the VAR, and basically mean all you need is your Replay Operator to complete the task successfully. I think it would be brilliant in taking the pressure of deciding what meets the C&O threshold, but would also just lead to new stoppages where in the 94th min, a team have two challenges left so ‘may as well’ use them.

However, I understand that isn’t the point of this debate.

For what it’s worth, Graeme, you’ve been outspoken about how just because it isn’t SFP, it doesn’t negate a penalty and the fact that it’s careless.

I’ve previously agreed with RefereeX, and said I don’t think it’s set in stone, but for me, the more i’ve seen the image floating around the more it meets the careless threshold for me, and would be a penalty if seen in real time by Michael Oliver.

Obviously echoing Rusty and others now, never enough for an OFR in my opinion. It just can’t be deemed C&O

 

[GraemeS]

OK, but why? It's at least careless - what's not clear about that?

 

[george.g]

Because as demonstrated by a range of views online, here and actually myself at first, some people don’t think it’s a clear cut foul. Not even careless

 

[GraemeS]

He jams his studs into an opponents chest. Where's the care?

 

[george.g]

I agree with you, it's careless in my opinion. But as has been raised, there's been plenty of people online, on here, and who I've actually spoken to in person who aren't sure on whether they think it's a penalty, and the majority of people I've spoken to are happy VAR has not intervened.

 

[GraemeS]

"People online" think that getting the ball means you can do what you want after. They want red cards for "last man" and FKs for "obstruction" and "backpasses". This forum exists because we're supposed to be working to a higher standard of understanding of law, and PL referees should be working to an even higher understanding than us.

I'm not asking for results of a survey of social media. You're a trained ref with an understanding of law. I'm asking you to help me understand what about this isn't clearly and obviously at least a careless act?

 

[RefereeX]

"People online" think that getting the ball means you can do what you want after. They want red cards for "last man" and FKs for "obstruction" and "backpasses". This forum exists because we're supposed to be working to a higher standard of understanding of law, and PL referees should be working to an even higher understanding than us.

I'm not asking for results of a survey of social media. You're a trained ref with an understanding of law. I'm asking you to help me understand what about this isn't clearly and obviously at least a careless act?

I think you're reading too much in to the word careless. 'Careless' is used to define whether something we've given as a foul is not worthy of any further sanction. Players do many careless things in a game without them being fouls.

I don't understand why you can't accept that other people don't view this as a glaringly obvious foul. The contact is minimal. It's subjective.

I also disagree where you've said he jams his studs in to the opponent's chest. I don't think there is much stud involved at all, and certainly not a jamming of it in to the opponents chest.

But once again, we're going round in circles.

 

[george.g]

I'm going to second the above post. We're going in circles.

I'm a trained ref, and I understand "careless" and its definition in law. This is simply not screaming out as an absolute error if you ask me.

Put it this way, I'd rather VAR intervened less and missed this one out, than intervened more and picked this one up.

 

[GraemeS]

The word "careless" is literally the core to the definition of what is/isn't a foul. I'm not sure it's possible to read too much into it!

"The contact is minimal" - which I've already accepted as a valid reason for why it's not a red card. But it's not a valid reason for no foul when the foot is in such an unexpected position.

"It's subjective" - doesn't actually mean anything. When the laws do give you direction such as "careless", we need to apply that direction rather than pretend we can subjectively ignore it if it doesn't suit the decision we want to give. Doku puts his foot at chest height and fails to take enough care to ensure it doesn't make contact with an opponent = Careless.

 

[RefereeX]

The word "careless" is literally the core to the definition of what is/isn't a foul. I'm not sure it's possible to read too much into it!

"The contact is minimal" - which I've already accepted as a valid reason for why it's not a red card. But it's not a valid reason for no foul when the foot is in such an unexpected position.

"It's subjective" - doesn't actually mean anything. When the laws do give you direction such as "careless", we need to apply that direction rather than pretend we can subjectively ignore it if it doesn't suit the decision we want to give. Doku puts his foot at chest height and fails to take enough care to ensure it doesn't make contact with an opponent = Careless.

But the contact being minimal is very much a valid reason for it not to be a foul. We spoke about trifling etc.

We have accepted that it probably is enough to warrant a foul, but the amount of contact is the reason that some people don't and also the reason why it's not enough of an error for VAR to intervene in our opinion. I can't comprehend why you feel that's an unacceptable viewpoint.

The contact was clearly not as bad as MacAllister made it out to be. If you believe it was (as you're using terms like 'jamming studs into his chest' etc) then perhaps that is why our opinion differs. I honestly don't know, but referees will not always agree on every decision. This is one of them, but for some reason you can't accept that?

 

[george.g]

Doku puts his foot at chest height and fails to take enough care to ensure it doesn't make contact with an opponent = Careless.

The part which says "= careless" is the problem! Some stakeholders in football, even if they are spectators and not held to the highest standard of knowledge of LOTG, and also some referees, don't think that what you've said automatically "= careless". At that point, how Clear & Obvious is it?

 

[GraemeS]

But the contact being minimal is very much a valid reason for it not to be a foul. We spoke about trifling etc.

We have accepted that it probably is enough to warrant a foul, but the amount of contact is the reason that some people don't and also the reason why it's not enough of an error for VAR to intervene in our opinion. I can't comprehend why you feel that's an unacceptable viewpoint.

The contact was clearly not as bad as MacAllister made it out to be. If you believe it was (as you're using terms like 'jamming studs into his chest' etc) then perhaps that is why our opinion differs. I honestly don't know, but referees will not always agree on every decision. This is one of them, but for some reason you can't accept that?

If I'm overstating the extent of the contact, you're massively understating it by trying to describe it as "trifling". There's at least some contact both with his chest and again on his thigh as the foot comes down, and it's by a player who has jumped in the air and so is not in control of where their body goes and has the force of their momentum going into the challenge at the very least.

And the reason I'm struggling to accept is because you're the first person who has actually attempted to give me a law-based reason. I think it's wrong - the definition of careless is in the book, includes the phrase "acts without precaution" and this very clearly meets that threshold - but there's been so much chat about social media, non-referee opinions and details that don't relate to what the books says. People have a lot of reasons to want to see this as not C&O, but nothing seems to be based on much more than feelings.

It just seems like a textbook example to me, and I'm not sure what VAR is for if it's not to recommend giving a missed penalty in arguably the most important moment of this PL season?

 

[RustyRef]

And at the risk of repeating myself, what about that isn't clearly a foul? Remember that we only need to reach a "careless" threshold to award a penalty and you're again using red/yellow card language rather than foul/no foul language. You've persuaded me Doku shouldn't have seen red - but the boot is clearly high, he clearly makes contact with the opponents chest. And even if it were true, getting the ball first isn't relevant mitigation, it's still careless at least.

The only reason this isn't an obvious overturn is an artificially high clarity requirement, which is something the PL has repeatedly caused themselves problems with in the past. If you could show this clip to IFAB the season before VAR is introduced, they'd say it's a textbook example of a mistake their new system should be able to easily fix.

Are you deliberately merging my two statements just to prove a point? Where in my first paragraph did I say anything about red or yellow card language, I clearly said I have no problem with it being a foul but don't think it is enough for VAR intervention based on what we have seen in recent months with regards to their involvement level.