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Mac Allister ban overturned

santa sangria

santa sangria

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“The statement read: "An independent Regulatory Commission has removed Alexis Mac Allister's three-match suspension following a claim of wrongful dismissal. The Liverpoolmidfielder was sent off for serious foul play during their Premier League game against Bournemouth on Saturday 19th August."”

I am lost here. TBH I am a Bton boy, Liv fan, VAR hater, desperate for him to play Newcastle.

But I do not understand or agree here.

I think RC was acceptable as did VAR Tierney. How does the governance work here? Common sense says this should mean a few weeks off for Bramall and Tierney if that’s how wrong decisions are punished. But it’s an “independent “ panel what? So, outside PGMOL purview? Or what? Argh so weird!

Back to keeping 11 players on the pitch no matter what they do!
 
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I just wish wish wish VAR worked as a “oi mate, think you might wanna take a second look at this” rather than all this C&O bollox. Suggest the Ref may want to see a real-time review, with the context that he saw and heard it from a few yards away with one angle. “Got another angle here, Dave. We’re not sure up here. Wanna take another look?”

(Obviously this doesn’t apply to factual decisions - in/out play, offside, in/out box).
 
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Don’t think the red card was acceptable at all, and guessing the panel agreed that it wasn’t ‘serious foul play’. I am just really surprised Paul Tierney and the VAR team could look at that in slow motion and not get the referee to have another look. Think most serious commentators and ex-referees I have read didn’t think it was a red card. Common sense has prevailed.
 
Appeal decisions have always been, at best, a bit random as the panel is made up of two ex-players / managers and one ex-referee. So even if the ex-referee thinks it is nailed on if the other two think it was wrong it will get overturned.

I've said it before, but it is like having ex-criminals sitting in the court of appeal. No qualification in the LoTG / laws of the land, yet can rule on decisions made by a qualified referee / qualified judge. I fully expected this one to get overturned as it was "soft" and ex-players / managers are never going to say it was correct.
 
It’s not just ex players and managers, and quite rare for Dermot Gallagher to go against the officials but he explained, "Not a red card, for me. I think the problem here is the referee thinks this is a high tackle but it only becomes a high tackle because both players are there.

"If you look the boot actually catches him on the ankle, so if his foot was on the ground he'd still catch him in the same place so it's not a high tackle. That is what has deceived the referee."

Just think it was a poor decision and doesn’t reflect well on the VAR team, as was the Wolves incident a few days before.
 
Mr Dean said:
My guess is that the independent panel doesn't work to the same 'clear and obvious' threshold as VAR. It is normal for such panels to use the civil threshold of 'balance of probabilities'. This means that the panel has a lower hurdle to overcome than VAR to overturn the red card.
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Yes, you are probably right as I haven’t done VAR obviously, and don’t know the ins and outs of ‘clear and obvious’. Liverpool wouldn’t have appealed this lightly as the ban would have been extended if they had lost, so their legal team must have been very confident in arguing in wasn't serious foul play. Maybe the threshold for a ‘clear and obvious error’ should be looked at, but it looked a pretty clear and obvious error at the time?
 
Tim Punter said:
It’s not just ex players and managers, and quite rare for Dermot Gallagher to go against the officials but he explained, "Not a red card, for me. I think the problem here is the referee thinks this is a high tackle but it only becomes a high tackle because both players are there.

"If you look the boot actually catches him on the ankle, so if his foot was on the ground he'd still catch him in the same place so it's not a high tackle. That is what has deceived the referee."

Just think it was a poor decision and doesn’t reflect well on the VAR team, as was the Wolves incident a few days before.
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And on the flip side Mike Dean, who isn't representing PGMOL, said he thought it was a red card. I'd have been happy with yellow or red, but I think the appeal commissions overturn things far too easily without really understanding the law that the sending off was based on. We'll have to wait for the written reasons to be published, but I suspect it will contain nonsense like "it was an accidental challenge" or "there was no intent", neither of which the referee can take into account when making the decision on the day.

I don't care whatever anyone says to the contrary, I will never be able to comprehend a system where people with zero qualifications in the laws are able to overturn decisions made by active and qualified referees. It just makes no sense.
 
Tim Punter said:
Yes, you are probably right as I haven’t done VAR obviously, and don’t know the ins and outs of ‘clear and obvious’. Liverpool wouldn’t have appealed this lightly as the ban would have been extended if they had lost, so their legal team must have been very confident in arguing in wasn't serious foul play. Maybe the threshold for a ‘clear and obvious error’ should be looked at, but it looked a pretty clear and obvious error at the time?
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That isn't right, the addition of an extra game suspension for a frivolous appeal is extremely rare and only when they have clearly appealed a nailed on correct decision. Being cynical, usually so the player involved can play in a big game, and that doesn't work these days as they hold the appeal hearing before the next game.
 
RustyRef said:
That isn't right, the addition of an extra game suspension for a frivolous appeal is extremely rare and only when they have clearly appealed a nailed on correct decision. Being cynical, usually so the player involved can play in a big game, and that doesn't work these days as they hold the appeal hearing before the next game.
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I read that Liverpool we’re not going to appeal for this reason, so stand corrected
 
FirsFox40 said:
I just wish wish wish VAR worked as a “oi mate, think you might wanna take a second look at this” rather than all this C&O bollox. Suggest the Ref may want to see a real-time review, with the context that he saw and heard it from a few yards away with one angle. “Got another angle here, Dave. We’re not sure up here. Wanna take another look?”
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C&O was the trade off against excessively interrupting the game. The reality is soccer as a flow game really isn't suited to video review. And the more of it there is, the more it disrupts the game. I wish we could get rid of it, but at this point we're stuck with it, and the C&O standard (which is mushy at best) is the dike protecting us from a flood of delays. (The other option, which I also don't particularly like, is the challenge system, which limits the possible number of reviews--the problem with that, of course, is when a team has used up its challenge(s) and there is a clear missed handball in added time that stops a goal, we have the exact mess that this was designed to stop from happening.)
 
As someone on the end of the panel after reporting an incident of discrimination I can confidently say they are 1) operated very differently to how a refereeing team will make decisions and 2) entirely unfit for purpose
 
Mr Dean said:
My guess is that the independent panel doesn't work to the same 'clear and obvious' threshold as VAR. It is normal for such panels to use the civil threshold of 'balance of probabilities'. This means that the panel has a lower hurdle to overcome than VAR to overturn the red card.
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This is exactly my stance and exactly why I didn't expect the red to be overturned by VAR but did expect the suspension to be dropped. C&O means the VAR will only really be looking at objective aspects of red card decisions - so in this case, does the tackle roughly match what the referee describes? High boot, made contact with the studs, there's unlikely to be a disconnect there, so the VAR can't get involved.

But for me, pretty much every subjective element provides mitigation once you're actually allowed to consider them:
* Force is minimal
* What force there is comes from the B'mouth player kicking through the ball rather than the MacAllister challenge
* Both players are making a similar play on the ball
* Because of this, the "height" is deceptive and so it's actually boot-to-boot
* Not leading with the studs as such, they only come out at the very last second
* Most frustratingly (and I doubt if this will even have been considered) but the reason he was late to the challenge is he had to adjust his run to get around the ref!

I think this is both systems working "as intended" - VAR isn't supposed to get involved in anything with any degree of subjectivity due to C&O, review panel will look for if a red card (and therefore 3-match suspension) was the best decision. I don't think it makes any sense to have those two systems using different approaches, but that's the world we're in and it's at least meant there's no over-harsh suspension.
 
Oh and as a side note, it's been really disappointing to see how quickly some journalists rush to print the name of the VAR because they know his history with Liverpool will get people riled up and generate clicks. Especially given what I said above and that he just did the job he's employed to do, it feels really irresponsible to spread his name around and imply he's at fault and has an agenda.
 
GraemeS said:
This is exactly my stance and exactly why I didn't expect the red to be overturned by VAR but did expect the suspension to be dropped. C&O means the VAR will only really be looking at objective aspects of red card decisions - so in this case, does the tackle roughly match what the referee describes? High boot, made contact with the studs, there's unlikely to be a disconnect there, so the VAR can't get involved.

But for me, pretty much every subjective element provides mitigation once you're actually allowed to consider them:
* Force is minimal
* What force there is comes from the B'mouth player kicking through the ball rather than the MacAllister challenge
* Both players are making a similar play on the ball
* Because of this, the "height" is deceptive and so it's actually boot-to-boot
* Not leading with the studs as such, they only come out at the very last second
* Most frustratingly (and I doubt if this will even have been considered) but the reason he was late to the challenge is he had to adjust his run to get around the ref!

I think this is both systems working "as intended" - VAR isn't supposed to get involved in anything with any degree of subjectivity due to C&O, review panel will look for if a red card (and therefore 3-match suspension) was the best decision. I don't think it makes any sense to have those two systems using different approaches, but that's the world we're in and it's at least meant there's no over-harsh suspension.
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Take your point, but thought the original decision was very harsh, and with 35min to go and the game at 2-1, could have had a real impact on Liverpool's season if Bournemouth had got a result, so don't agree that the system worked that well.
When you look at this original red card that was overturned for Trippier vs De Bruyne, after a VAR intervention, I still cannot see why the VAR didn't think it was a C&O offer for the MacAllister challenge, but realise we can go on for ever arguing what is a C&O error! This tackle seemed more of a nailed on red

 
Tim Punter said:
Take your point, but thought the original decision was very harsh, and with 35min to go and the game at 2-1, could have had a real impact on Liverpool's season if Bournemouth had got a result, so don't agree that the system worked that well.
When you look at this original red card that was overturned for Trippier vs De Bruyne, after a VAR intervention, I still cannot see why the VAR didn't think it was a C&O offer for the MacAllister challenge, but realise we can go on for ever arguing what is a C&O error! This tackle seemed more of a nailed on red

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Tackle at 8:40
 
Tim Punter said:
Take your point, but thought the original decision was very harsh, and with 35min to go and the game at 2-1, could have had a real impact on Liverpool's season if Bournemouth had got a result, so don't agree that the system worked that well.
When you look at this original red card that was overturned for Trippier vs De Bruyne, after a VAR intervention, I still cannot see why the VAR didn't think it was a C&O offer for the MacAllister challenge, but realise we can go on for ever arguing what is a C&O error! This tackle seemed more of a nailed on red

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I explicitly don't say the system worked well, I think it's a poorly implemented system and the high bar is a bad concept.

I say it worked as intended - a stated goal of the VAR system, particularly in the PL is to avoid overly delaying the game and avoid re-refereeing where possible. If those are some of the core stated goals, VAR achieved them in this instance. I'm able to think that and also think that they're stupid things to put at the top of a list of priorities for a video review system.
 
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GraemeS said:
I explicitly don't say the system worked well, I think it's a poorly implemented system and the high bar is a bad concept.

I say it worked as intended - a stated goal of the VAR system, particularly in the PL is to avoid overly delaying the game and avoid re-refereeing where possible. If those are some of the core stated goals, VAR achieved them in this instance. I'm able to think that and also think that they're stupid things to put at the top of a list of priorities for a video review system.
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Thanks, I see what you mean now.
 
GraemeS said:
This is exactly my stance and exactly why I didn't expect the red to be overturned by VAR but did expect the suspension to be dropped. C&O means the VAR will only really be looking at objective aspects of red card decisions - so in this case, does the tackle roughly match what the referee describes? High boot, made contact with the studs, there's unlikely to be a disconnect there, so the VAR can't get involved.

But for me, pretty much every subjective element provides mitigation once you're actually allowed to consider them:
* Force is minimal
* What force there is comes from the B'mouth player kicking through the ball rather than the MacAllister challenge
* Both players are making a similar play on the ball
* Because of this, the "height" is deceptive and so it's actually boot-to-boot
* Not leading with the studs as such, they only come out at the very last second
* Most frustratingly (and I doubt if this will even have been considered) but the reason he was late to the challenge is he had to adjust his run to get around the ref!

I think this is both systems working "as intended" - VAR isn't supposed to get involved in anything with any degree of subjectivity due to C&O, review panel will look for if a red card (and therefore 3-match suspension) was the best decision. I don't think it makes any sense to have those two systems using different approaches, but that's the world we're in and it's at least meant there's no over-harsh suspension.
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I don't think the red card is ever rescinded, it stays on the record and it is just the suspension that is removed. Sure there has been a case where a player got sent off again later in the season and they got an extra game suspension due to the first red card, even though the suspension had been removed from it on appeal.

That's how they get around the FIFA rulings, as in almost every other country if you get sent off that is that, there is no right of appeal no matter how wrong it was.
 
MLS also permits appeals. But if I recall correctly there is a representative from PRO (the Professional Referee Organization) on the committee and the decision has to be unanimous. (MLS also doesn't have the mandatory 3 game suspension rule--all reds start at 1 game but there are procedures to increase where warranted.)
 
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