So five 3:00 pm games this Saturday will be the first of a proposed 15-game trial of VAR in the Premier League and the PGMO. What can we expect?
Fans shouldn’t hold their breath. According to media reports, this weekend is merely a test of whether the VAR hub at Stockley Park, near Heathrow, can cope with decisions arising from multiple matches. The ‘live’ match scenario will be replicated in the VAR hub but there will be no contact between the team at Stockley Park and the officials on the pitch. As far as the impact on the refereeing at the matches is concerned it will be a “nothingburger.”
The PL and most of the mainstream media are making a great show of this trialing of VAR when FIFA has already proven that it can be successfully implemented. During the World Cup, at FIFA’s hub in Moscow, there was a team comprising the video assistant referee (VAR) and his three assistant video assistant referees (AVAR1, AVAR2 and AVAR3) for each game. All video assistant referee team members were top FIFA match officials. FIFA’s Referee Committee has selected 13 Referees, who acted solely as video assistant referees during the World Cup. In addition to the 13 Video Assistant Referees, some of the Referees and Assistant Referees selected for the World Cup Russia also acted as Video Match Officials during the competition.
Insufficient Referees
Apart from the fact that the PGMO did not have a single referee at the World Cup, i.e. someone who would have benefited from the experience, they simply do not have enough experienced referees to properly implement VAR. Through Keith Hackett, former PGMOL head, we recently learned there are currently only 17 select referees available to the PGMO. He indicated that of that total, only two have any experience as video referees.
When Bobby Madley suddenly “retired” at the start of the season, Hackett expressed alarm at the current state of affairs. It was his belief the PGMOL are in ‘a difficult position’ where out-of-form refs won’t be given time off to recharge the batteries.
They have 18 referees now it’s down to 17. Roger East is unwell and is unavailable so now it’s down to 16.
They promoted two last season – Simon Hooper and David Coote – but it will take them two or three years to get a level experience to in the Premier League.
Some referees – Lee Probert, for example – are coming towards the end of their careers. It may be their last season for a couple of them.
This just leaves even more pressure on Martin Atkinson and Michael Oliver who are generally very, very good. Atkinson was probably the best referee last season.
There’s just not enough experienced referees and it’s because there hasn’t been enough succession planning.”
As many have often argued, as an affiliate of that multi-billion pound corporate behemoth known as the Premier League, the PGMOL has no one to blame but itself for the current state of affairs. According to news reports, for the domestic TV rights alone the Premier League’s last deal, agreed in 2015 and running until 2019, was worth £5.14bn. Clearly there is more than enough money available to the PL to incentivize amateur referees to become full-time professionals and to train and promote Select 2 referees to the elite ranks. Succession planning is the responsibility of those who direct and manage any business or organization and Mike Riley and company have failed miserably at this.
Unless the PGMOL upgrades the number of qualified referees available I predict this so-called trial will be a farce as was the last go-round.
Negativity By Mainstream media
In my opinion, last year’s Carabao Cup VAR trials was listless, lukewarm, and unenthusiastic. Given the typically luddite responses of most pundits and ex-pros to any innovation in football, not surprisingly the response in the English media was predictably negative.
Barney Ronay of The Guardian, in January, after only the 3rd trial of VAR by the Football League concluded:
The fact is, for all the expertise, the manpower, the money spent, VAR just doesn’t work in football. It diminishes the experience of watching in the stadium. It skews the game decisively one way. It is one of those ideas, like bendy buses, or communism, that would simply be better off abandoned.
Over at the BBC, where apparently most Briton’s receive their football knowledge, Alan Shearer was his usual
profound self, as part of a panel of pundits reviewing a Carabao Cup game last January between Chelsea and Norwich. After a decision influenced by VAR, he was raging about the technology:
I was very doubtful about it and now it’s a shambles….
The Guardian, of all newspapers, had to rip him to pieces:
Even if the decision had been clearly wrong – which it wasn’t, but we’ll come on to that – Shearer’s reaction was childish and ill‑informed, and by his own admission – “I was very doubtful about it” – fuelled by prejudice rather than genuine analysis.
Being employed to have opinions does not mean he has to leap two-footed into them, studs up and full of fury. And by being so judgmental and so outspoken Shearer has unnecessarily brought the focus on to the VAR…
The World Cup Changed Everything
But FIFA’s 2018 World Cup implementation of VAR changed everything. As early as June 10th I wrote a blog expressing the view that:
VAR at the 2018 World Cup is the 21st century Russian Revolution. It is the football equivalent of “Seven Days That Shook The World” over 100 years ago. As happened in Europe and the world, for decades thereafter, nothing in football refereeing will remain the same after the VAR revolution at the 2018 World Cup.
This weekends trials prove my point. Once VAR had proven itself on the global stage, Messers Scudamore and Riley can no longer pretend or deny the necessity of VAR in the Premier League. Apart from the outrage by the football public, the broadcasters, who are now the PL’ss biggest source of revenue, cannot afford to carry a product that flouts commonly accepted standards of officiating. But without the requisite number of experienced referees to perform video and on-field duties, the current trials are in my opinion, an act of futility.
Think am overly pessimistic? Your thoughts.
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English
Very good my friend..I can’t find a flaw in your arguments.
Good stuff Shotta.
The ref numbers look a serious impediment to successfully implementing VAR here.
Maybe it will be all hands on deck and they’ll have to get pretend independent expert Dermot Gallagher in the booth.
Those numbers,though. I believe 24 was the stated number they believed correct and said pgmol would have at the time the organisation was set up.
Not coincidentally a similar number used in Italy after their last massive refereeing scandal as they sought improvements.
To miss that target for a couple of years is unfortunate; to miss it permanently, when presumably it was chosen for sound reasons, and while football here is experiencing an unprecedented cash boom, looks deliberate.
Much of the fault for that, and indeed the total failure to address a huge North/South imbalance in referees, may well not be all pgmol’s fault.
The premier league, the clubs and even the FA are in the mix, but the fact remains that with the money in the game, if the will was there with the relevant parties a small portion of the money in the game should be diverted towards the entire refereeing system here, and if done correctly within 5-10 years there should be a closing of North/south divide and a significant boost in number of top refs available.
So who was it who lacked the will or desire- clubs, pgmol, prem, FA (least power in the equation)- to do this years ago?
Could pgmol, prem and FA not sell it to the clubs that extra funding should provide a better standard of refs? Did they try? Do they see it that way?
We don’t know and are similarly in the dark, really, about how these parties are communicating with each other on the issue of VAR.
One solid fact is that the clubs voted against it for a year while other leagues press on.
I don’t know if there’ll be any feedback re the multi matches, but is this a first for the tests?
Theoretically there could be nineteen games simultaneously under review (last week of the season), but I think there must have been at least that many matches on the go at once in last season’s domestic cup trials (which indicates that at least the FA & Football League are up to speed) so it looks to me that they (the PL & PGMO) are admitting that there’s more work to before ‘going live’, and from my own observations at the World Cup there’s still quite a lot to be done. The technology seems to be excellent, but the implementation is a bit of a shambles.
I’m not all that fussed about ‘when’ TBH. Just get it right!!
I want VAR in the Premier League and I want it ASAP, but more importantly I want it to be perfect, or as near perfect as possible, and from what I saw in the World Cup it falls short of that by quite a bit.
If we could have something like Cricket or Rugby type explanations with the refs miked up for public to hear and to feel that what they’re witnessing is as near to the ‘truth’ as possible.
I look forward to that.
Should have added (though I said quite a bit) that under the current set up it is the FA who are responsible for the training, development etc of officials from the lowest levels of the game up through the professional ranks until the point where they come into consideration for the select group.
With that in mind, it is extraordinary to think that the FA are, apparently, not in great health financially and are actually short of funds/resources for the particular task.
I forget the exact nature of their income but it is very different from that of pgmol, who are 90% funded by the premier league, and are likely in better financial health for their own task- running the select group.
The flaw is quite obvious and fairly gigantic : an underfunded group (the FA) are tasked with providing the goods for a better funded group who are paid for by a financially thriving organisation (the premier league) funded by a group (the clubs) enjoying a seemingly unending financial boom.
Back to the will. It seems to me if the clubs were thinking right, or if the self-interest of all parties aligned with taking sensible measures to try ensure the best officiating possible, the rest -excellent funding to all levels of refereeing, in pursuit of best practice, optimum numbers, a better balance- would be an inevitability.
Same applies to VAR.
Rich and Hooter: Amazing insights provided. Keep on coming. As you may be well aware the PGMOL is not the most transparent organization. The wall of opacity is equivalent to the intelligence services. We have to rely on secondary sources for information and keeping peeling away at layer upon layer of secrecy. IMO, this is the worst way to implement a new system of officiating football games.
The anti-Southern England(League of olde) bias of the pgmol is indefensible
As is the PL’s warm embrace of the gabling industry.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/13/the-normalisation-of-gambling-in-football
I suppose that this is because fair skinned bookies are more trustworthy then those of a darker hue? Eh?
Classic example of Omerta. Don’t mention the online betting sponsers on the shirts and the conflict of interest that arises as a result. Unless you are a priest?
the most telling quote in the article is
“It skews the game decisively one way”
yes, only in the English game could doing more to get the correct decision be described as skewing the game. It really seems that some are very intent on keeping the status quo of Refs getting things wrong and cheating working unpunished.
This feel like their official “we tried” , they definitely know if television audiences know VAR is an option their will be increased demand, this compromise seems like giving themselves a free pass. Though the politics of having better equipped but lesser experienced referees correcting their on field peers would give them pause, the way i see it even if they want the on field ref to have the last say, the VAR can still function to reduce errors. Maybe the gap in referee “quality” is too large *shrugs*
Who knows though, if the media actually picks this up it might work it fans favor.
Martin ‘Chelsea’ Atkinson one of the best refs ??????? I fully agree that VAR should be implemented straightaway but after reading the above not sure of the writer. Atkinson is one of the most biased referees ever who is forever cheating especially against Arsenal
That’s Keith Hackett’s opinion. Follow the quotes. Remember Hackett was a former PGMO boss and to my recollection Atkinson’s career may have started during his watch. So Hackett may have a soft spot for some of his old colleagues. Who knows?
Shotta,
Don’t know if you saw, but an article in paper yesterday saying that after the trial run on Sat of multiple games there was only one decision they would have intervened on. Disallowed goal for Sane.
I only saw one replay but the Jorgensen foul on Zaha looked a strong candidate for a red for me. Deliberate, lot of force, reckless, not near to ball and hit player dangerously.
Not a surprise but a sure indication of how VAR likely to be used and not used here, with a reluctance to use it on dangerous fouls a ref has seen.
Think Vertonghen’s connection with face was no accident, though going into the eye socket probably wasn’t intentional, but i accept it’s too much to ask for them to make a call against that. Would require a complete reversal in attitude to where they make players responsible for their actions and massively reduce emphasis on (unprovable) intent.
Just catching up Rich. In a weekend when Wilf Zaha blew the lid on inconsistent refereeing by the PGMOL, they come up with the astonishing data that there was only ONE reversible decision. Clearly they think football fans are stupid, gullible people.
Article I read gave impression their vision of VAR will be : offsides plus VERY, VERY clear and obvious mistakes.
Think there was a pen given for a handball when arms were close to body and ball was hammered from very close distance. That could well be their threshold, i.e a decision that looks very harsh and debatable, isn’t enough to prompt action from them, if they believe the ref was positioned to see it and make his judgement first time around.
For instance, if they think…hmm, it may not be a penalty, or vice versa, that would not be enough to ask a ref to look at it again or advise reversing call.
Central to this, I presume, is the assumption that the referee saw the incident well in the first place.
This will help them a lot in keeping disruptions to a minimum, not hurting the flow, letting the on-pitch ref retain nearly all their previous power. Best of all, avoiding the dreaded re-refereeing of incidents
It’s a very limited, far from optimal version of VAR, in my opinion, but I’m fairly certain it’s what they’ll go for (with the occasional big exceptions, of course)
Justification for it relies on the surely wrong-headed notion that a ref’s near instantaneous decision, from one angle/view is typically at least equal, if not superior, to many angles and views plus extra time to think and process the images.
Rich that’s very useful info. Any citations, source documents, etc.?
Tried to reply earlier but wouldn’t send. So here goes again.
Apologies for giving impression most of that could be sourced to article I read (or elsewhere)
Most of it came from my views on pgmol, the general conversations and attitudes within game here, and the way VAR was used by pgmol last year, particuarly the reluctance to use pitch-side review (they did it early once or twice- Liv West Brom in FA cup, were criticised and, I believe, didn’t use it at all in later months, even when strong justification for it)
As for article in question, don’t know which one/s I looked at, but here are three.
They don’t contain direct quotes from pgmol or premier league but can only be result of communication with them (unless journalists invented from thin air).
All quite brief but very similar.
————
‘It is understood the Premier League are happy with how the trial went.
Bournemouth were given what some fans saw as a dubious penalty in their 4-2 win over Leicester for handball, but VAR would have adjudged the decision not to have been a clear and obvious error.’
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/premier-league-trialled-var-saturdays-13254528#comments-section
————————-
‘There were a number of controversial incidents during Saturday’s action but VAR did not adjudge the decision of the officials to have been clear and obvious errors.
Bournemouth were also given a dubious penalty for handball in their 4-2 victory over Leicester but that decision would also have stood.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6173705/Premier-League-happy-VAR-trial-Saturday-3pm-kick-offs.html
———————
‘The penalty awarded to Bournemouth for handball in their 4-2 win over Leicester would not have been overruled, as it was not considered a clear and obvious error.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45534893
——————-
Now let’s hope it sends as can’t be typing that a third time
Shotta, tried twice to reply to your last comment but not going through.
Seem able to use rest of internet ok so not sure what’s up.
Saved what I typed this time so will try again if this sends
Tried to reply earlier but wouldn’t send. So here goes again.
Apologies for giving impression most of that could be sourced to article I read (or elsewhere)
Most of it came from my views on pgmol, the general conversations and attitudes within game here, and the way VAR was used by pgmol last year, particuarly the reluctance to use pitch-side review (they did it early once or twice- Liv West Brom in FA cup, were criticised and, I believe, didn’t use it at all in later months, even when strong justification for it)
As for article in question, don’t know which one/s I looked at, but here are three.
They don’t contain direct quotes from pgmol or premier league but can only be result of communication with them (unless journalists invented from thin air).
All quite brief but very similar.
————-
[I’ve removed links, as still not getting through. All can be found quickly on latest results for ‘VAR trial’ on google.]
————
Daily Mirror
‘It is understood the Premier League are happy with how the trial went.
Bournemouth were given what some fans saw as a dubious penalty in their 4-2 win over Leicester for handball, but VAR would have adjudged the decision not to have been a clear and obvious error.’
————————-
‘There were a number of controversial incidents during Saturday’s action but VAR did not adjudge the decision of the officials to have been clear and obvious errors.
Bournemouth were also given a dubious penalty for handball in their 4-2 victory over Leicester but that decision would also have stood.
Daily Mail
———————
‘The penalty awarded to Bournemouth for handball in their 4-2 win over Leicester would not have been overruled, as it was not considered a clear and obvious error.’
BBC
——————-
Excellent piece Shotta,
We all know the ref establishment and the pundits are footballing dinosaurs and dragging them kicking and screaming into the modern age won’t be easy. It is important they embrace the full version of VAR and not try an water it down or over influence it.
Keep up the good work