http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-27/soccer-a-league-video-assistant-referee-accurate-report-confirms/9366766?section=sport

Easy to make such an argument in a contentious sport. Bless you though.

The VAR has been better in recent weeks. But after the CCM vs BRI game, it just shows that the HAL refs are shit. How the hell was he only going to give a yellow? And even more so how did the VAR take several minutes to make a decision, the VAR card choice should have been made the moment the ref put his hand on his ear piece.

Im sure Stebre is up there eating hot chips. Them he gets a buzz from the ref to check something and he freaks out and quickly has to put his feet down and clear the keyboard of his chips.

Very strange it took that long to make a decision, one look on the replay should be enough.

Yeah it's not the technology, it's the shit refs that supposedly look at it!

What the article actually says.
In the matches in question the VAR ONLY reviewed 3947 incidents.

What it fails to say.

There could well have been 20,000 other incidents that it did NOT review, but that were worthy of a red card.

The issue is NOT that the VAR gets most of the incidents they do look at right. The issue is that the VAR can pick and choose issues to look at. They might decide to not bother looking at an obvious foul that we see on the T.V screen, but the referee misses. The VAR is easily able to be corrupted, and in fact is more open to corruption than a referee on the pitch. 

Nov 7, 2017 
By Gavin Cooney

Bundesliga In A Mess As The Head Of VAR Is Sacked Over Fixing Allegations

VAR, or the Video Assisted Referee, has endured a more troubling 2017 than many actual, human referees. Having become entangled in farce across much of the Confederations Cup, its most high-profile use to date, it is being trialled this season in Italy's Serie A and the German Bundesliga.

In the latter, the system has attracted scandal with today's revelations that Hellmut Krug, the head of the VAR system has been fired following a report by BILD claiming he was using his role to wrongly influence decisions. Krug denies the accusations.

e centre where all decisions are reviewed is in Cologne, and BILD claimed that Krug had acted twice to influence penalty decisions in favour of Schalke during last week's 1-1 draw with Wolfsburg.

Krug lives near Schalke's stadium in Gelsenkirchen.While Krug has strongly denied the allegations, he has been removed as the head of the VAR project by the DFB (the German football federation). He has been replaced by former referee Lutz Michael Froehlich.

There have been protests against the use of VAR in the stands at Bundesliga games, and this is the latest controversy to hit the use of the new system. Football magazine Kicker revealed in September that VARs were secretly instructed to intervene in more instances than initially advertised.

Instead of intervening only in cases of "a clearly incorrect decision" in four specific areas (goals, penalties, straight red cards and cases of mistaken identity), VARs were instructed to contact the referee on the field whenever they thought he or she might have got something wrong, even if they weren’t sure.

This led to an increase in the number of decisions going to the VAR.This change was only communicated to clubs on October 25th, via a letter signed by Krugg and Froehlich. The DFB president Reinhard Grindel denied knowledge of the letter, telling the media that "I am not happy. This letter was not authorized by me".

not surprised by any of this.

the VAR is completely unnecessary.  

VAR coping a battering in England after the FA Cup. Complete waste of time. 

Apparently Var was unsurprisingly a shambles in the Liverpool west brom match this morning, I can see millions of people walking away from the game, if only half the fans hate it, teams could be left with empty stadiums.
There is absolutely no way to improve it, you can't make it instant,  they can't make it used for every decision, so it's a lemon, Adrian deserved a 2nd yellow for the elbow on Friday, but because Var doesn't do yellows, he doesn't get sent off and contributes to 3 goals. 
Mark Bosnich told me,  Var would make football fairer, because teams wouldn't be disadvantaged anymore, by incorrect decisions,. He failed to mention,  it is only sometimes.

And that is the issue. If it is only sometimes and not others, people get severely disadvantaged.

They went back in time and invented VAR before the 1986 World Cup.
Maradonna 'hand of god incident':

"Oh my , the ball lands in the net here. It did appear to hit Maradonna's hand. The referee has signalled for a VAR to gage if it was handball. Let's watch this again (replay plays on monitors). Ref's have convened to make a decision. GOAL!"

VARs job is to make sure there are less 'upset' results.

Not hard to see who gains from that.

Can't be misused in any way shape or form if you can just explain it in a nice manner .and hey Adam peacock likes it so it's all good .

ECL group stages appeared after Berlusconis mob got knocked out early one year ?

chps n gravy i bet. different kinda gravy hmm maybe?

Besides the obvious fact that VAR slows everything down and takes away the spontaneity of a goal...it is making referees worse.
I think they are now reffing having to think about possible VAR decisions. A good ref used to think .."I am the ref and what I rule is how it goes"...
That can be good or bad but at least the he can referee with the confidence that comes from knowing he can't be second guessed.

One would think it definitely puts more pressure on Referee's to get their decisions right...because if you don't then the VAR will correct you!

But in all seriousness tho some referees will embrace the VAR as just another set of eyes in the game. The problem is when it is poorly used and implemented then it becomes a hazard. Using the HAL matches this weekend, the CCM v BRFC match the VAR correctly overruled the on-field YC decision and the correct decision was made, so in essence the VAR did it's job and corrected a major incident. in the PGFC v WSWFC match, the VAR correctly overruled a goal for an offside.

Whereas, in the MVFC v SFC match, the VAR did not intervene in the incident where Mierjeweski caught Williams in the side of the head with his arm/elbow. The only reason the VAR did not intervene is he determined the incident was not a "red card offence", which is small change when you think pretty much any foul this year which has involved an arm to the head has been met with a minimum yellow card. He should have been 2nd YC and off and I think this was more a failure of the officials on the field (Referee, AR's and the 4th official) than the actual VAR.

The VAR isn't gonna save every official when they make a mistake...and this is when the public gets the irrits with the officials making too many wrong calls.

The other issue with the VAR is the application across matches...it appears some are more involved than others. Some also have a different interpretation of what constitutes "obvious error" versus what is considered reviewable. Take the Bobo penalty decision, if the Referee doesn't give it, I don't think the VAR would overrule the decision (and I know this is a guess as the situation did not eventuate, yet it's a gut feel), but in the PGFC v WSWFC match last night the VAR overrules the Referee over a very slight tug of the player which he considered to be an "obvious error", yet both the referee and commentators did not consider originally as an incident.

I think the VAR can work, but the inefficiencies in the system need to be ironed out further before it really does create a farcical situation...

In the CCM V BR instance, in the past (pre VAR) the ref would not have hesitated in giving it a straight red. It was very clear and it looked like he was well positioned to view the foul. However, I get the feeling the ref has given yellow purely because he knows the VAR will sort it out. My concern is the on field ref just becomes superfluous and more or less just a message boy by never making any of the hard calls.

this is exactly my point ...well said .

I'm not referring to this particular case but I'd rather it be that way than the ref giving a dubious straight red which is then shown to be likely yellow but VAR doesnt intervene because it wasnt a 'howler'.

Happened in the Bundesliga a few weeks back - I think it was Leipzig. poor old defender basically tripped over and hit the back of the attackers leg. no intent but straight red and no VAR intervention because it was subjective and not absolutely wrong, but the wrong outcome is what happened. if the ref gives yellow the VAR can always go to red if clearly wrong but given the focus on not re-reffing the game this is less likely to happen so the team is fucked.

Its a bit like the off-side thing now. You'd like to think the linesmen wont flag unless absolutely 100%, no doubt whatsoever, certain its off-side but how often do they fuck it up and stop a legitimate passage of play when all they had to do is keep the flag down and let the VAR sort if its even remotely possible its on-side. 

If the tech is there its better to err on the side of whichever action doesn't ruin the game or fuck one side over unnecessarily.

I have to agree with your sentiments...but what we don't want to see (and want less of) is referees "second-guessing" themselves and relying on the VAR to correct their calls over them actually making calls...the CCM v BRFC incident was so clear-cut it should have been immediately dealt with without VAR intervention. Having been at NPL level as a referee, you need to get those types of calls correct.

Offsides are to me clear-cut and I have no issues with the "wait and see" approach, but does anyone think Jarred Gillett made that error of hoping the VAR would correct his and his teams "screw-up" on the Mierjewski offence? They will never admit it, but one would have to question why he wasn't issued a card straight away... 

• October 6 2017

Greg O’Rourke

“Referees have been the only individuals that have not been able to benefit from the use of video replay technology,” 

“VAR changes that and adds to the spectacle of the game, both at the ground and on broadcast.”

Refs are now thinking, “I’m pretty sure that was handball, but doesn’t matter because if it leads to a goal VAR will call it back”. Leads to a goal and VAR doesn’t even review it.

Assistants are now thinking, “Pretty sure that was offside, but if it leads to a goal VAR will correct it anyway”. Doesn’t lead to a goal but forces defender to give away a foul or a corner that leads to a goal. Offside not reviewed.

David Wagner was the beneficiary on this occasion, though still remains sceptical. “I don’t like it, I never have,” the Huddersfield coach said.

“Maybe I’m too traditional, but it kills the emotion in the stadium, and for me that’s a big part of football’s attraction.”

Newcastle coach Ernie Merrick blasts the VAR system and labels officiating 'disgraceful' in Jets loss

       Posted   Sat at 4:45am    
  
It's fair to say the A-League's Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system has had a torrid debut season, copping intense criticism from coaches, commentators and fans alike.Now, however, even the VAR's supporters are losing faith.Newcastle Jets coach Ernie Merrick reached his breaking point in his side's 2-2 draw with Western Sydney Wanderers at the Sydney Showground on Friday night.

He was scathing about the performance of referee Peter Green and the man with the video, Strebre Delovski, in a game where two goals were ruled out — including what could have been the go-ahead goal for Merrick's team."We scored two terrific goals, they scored two penalties," Merrick told Grandstand. "We scored another goal that was chalked off and I just thought it was a disgraceful performance by the referees."Merrick said the Jets' goals - one from Dimitri Petratos and a stunning curling strike from Andrew Nabbout — were overshadowed by a series of controversies, capped by a penalty call for handball against Nikolai Topor-Stanley that led to the Wanderers' second goal.

To add insult to injury, the Jets had a 72nd-minute goal — which would have given the visitors the lead — ruled out by the VAR because Jason Hoffman was deemed to have fouled Wanderers goalie Vedran Janjetovic in the air as he leaped to head the ball home. "That's what the crowd come to watch (goals), they don't come to watch [play] being stopped all the time for a VAR decision several minutes after a card, I mean that's just a disgrace," Merrick fumed."That was the first time I've complained about it, but that was just a disgrace."Asked whether he was happy to get the draw, Merrick said: "I was worried about the referees at the end, not the other team." The delay for VAR reviews has been another negative point among critics, which on this occasion resulted in a total seven minutes of stoppage time."We are stopping so much of the game, maybe three times in a game which is a lot," Western Sydney Wanderers coach Josep Gombau said."After that, some decisions will benefit us, some will affect us, but we are using it so much."To disallow our first goal, even watching the image you are not sure if it's offside or not. You need to be sure, and for me it wasn't."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-17/jets-coach-merrick-fired-up-about-you-guessed-it-var/9457928

Is it just me, or is Stebre the common denominator in all of this?

Why do you say that?

Looks like the voices of discontent are finally starting to really speak up, It is to late to save football from this evil, but hopefully the voices continue to get louder and louder and we can sse it punted after a few years.