Lowe lambasts 'crazy' video referee lunacy

Oops "Lowe" not "Low".

I support the VAR but over 2 minutes to review is well over the top. Low has it right, if it takes that long there has to be a perception of doubt (whether real or not). Let's just put this one down to an exception and hope that it doesn't become the norm.

ps After dinner, I think I have got it right. In a suspected handball situation, if there is doubt, the defender (ie the defendant of accused having handed the ball) should be given "benefit of doubt". That is to say that if there is doubt in a suspected handball commitment, the defender should be given "not guilty". That is no handball, no penalty (if in the box).

Ask Nemesis about handball rules. He gave a very good current offside rule web link and I understand more the "current" offside rule. However, something come to mind at this moment. The way viewing and deciding a tackle or a penalty (because of taking away the attacker's opportunity to score) is see whether the defender has contacts the ball or not. Simple!. It is because that everyone wants the ball. So, there is no way to judge what is on the mind of the defender as to doing a professional foul or a getting the ball tackle. Should the defender can "contact" the ball to remove the chance of losing a goal, the defender's action or tackle is legitimate. Else, failing to contact the ball but taking away the attacker's chance of scoring, it is regarded as a penalty fault. However, as for handball or not handball, it is about "deliberately" or "deliberate". It is so difficult. For tackling inside or outside the box it is simple to judge "deliberately" or not "deliberately" by seeing if the defender has contacted the ball to clear. However, in handball, it is judged informally by fans by "ball to hand" or "hand to ball". As above, there is no way to use "benefit of doubt" in "contacting the ball but not deliberately" or "contacting the ball deliberately". The video may not even be good enough to show that there has been a contact by hand, not to mention about the contact being deliberately or not. Another compounding issue is about natural human instinctive reaction. A player may draw a hand to protect himself when see a ball striking at him. There are so many factors and it is so hard to judge. That is why Graig Foster says that one of the factors is to determine is to see the distance of the ball coming to contact a hand. More importantly, I suddenly remember that I was wrong. In handball, "deliberately" or "not deliberately" may not be the full guideline. Remember Kewell's World Cup arm-ball? He was given a red card for being there right on top of the goal line. Also, if a hand is there (without moving) in the way of the ball going into the net, a penalty is given. It is because that should the hand not being there, the ball goes into the net surely. Yeah! If I have time I read the rules more.

I don't know, but I suspect the ref received a call from the VAR questioning whether the hand ball call was warranted. I can't think of any other circumstance which would prompt the VAR to suggest a review. The ref, Shaun Evans, was put between a rock and a hard place - was he going to reverse his decision? Not likely, so why did he take so long? Was the VAR attempting to convince him he got the call wrong? Evans should simply have said, "No, I got it right.", because it was a judgement call - was the ball handled deliberately, or not? As an aside, I am not sure many refs correctly interpret the hand ball rule. They appear not to understand the limits relating to human reaction times. Every now and then, a ball is hit at very high speed and makes contact with a defenders hand, and a penalty is awarded. Despite the fact that the possibility of getting ones hand out of the way is nigh impossible, and the fact that natural instincts are to withdraw the hand/arm, but insufficient time is available. The question is not "did the ball hit the hand/arm?", but "did the player deliberately handle the ball?".

There are very good discussions. I have not seen all. However, already, one thing comes to mind because of the sayings of the two doubtful penalties. They were doubtful. That is why one of the VAR sessions took so long. Using the video refereeing system in NRL, there is one thing called "benefit of doubt". If both the main referee and the video referee are in doubt, the main referee can judge by "benefit of doubt" and give the attacking side a "try". However, in soccer, the VAR system is still infant. There is no informal rule or common rule, such as "benefit of doubt". As such, more discussions and suggestions are needed to nurture this infant VAR. Anyhow, if both the VAR and main referee are not sure about a goal, the main referee can adopt the NRL's common rule called "benefit of doubt" and award a goal to the attacking side. Now, after building up the issue, there comes the main problem. The problem is not about " a goal" or "not a goal". The problem is about "a hand ball" or "not a hand ball". Anyone can give a suggestion for the main referee to support his decision of "a hand ball" or "not a hand ball"?

I know last year VAR was fully funded by FIFA because the ALeague was taking part in a FIFA trial. We'd need to ask FFA what it's costing. The VAR is not a decision-making tool. It's a fact finding tool. It's used to give the ref the same video replay that the people see in the studio & we eventually see at home. That way fans can't whine "the ref should've seen that". He will see everything. You may not like his decision. That's too bad. Just like Barnaby Joyce probably doesn't like the High Court Decision. Too bad. Those 7 High Court judges are the ones who make decisions. The ref is the one who makes decisions on the football field. A different ref might make a different decision. That's life.

Both the VAR and the fulltime referees are an absolute waste of money. Has the standard of refereeing and decision making improved one iota since they were introduced? A resounding no. I am also wondering what our fulltime referees are doing when they are not officiating during the rest of their working week and our very long off season. It's different with teams because they have to practice structures, game plans and improve their skills with repetitive drills. Players are also required to do promotional work for their clubs. The cost of this exercise, which I estimate at least @ $ 100 grand per player and the cost of the VAR is hard to calculate but the establishment cost must be immense and than there are the travel costs for the extra referee. The ref has 2 assistants plus the 4th official, surely they should be able to make a decision without an additional brain (?) thrust. Wasn't it a huge failure and point of controversy in the NRL? Sensible comments to my post will be extremely welcome.

Apart from the time factor, I think the problem with the VAR is exactly as you say, consistency, that it can deal with some things and not others. Fans will naturally feel aggrieved if a player is ruled offside by video yet another that was wrongly given isn't reviewed.

We should all visit this site: https://football-technology.fifa.com/en/media-tiles/video-assistant-referees-var/ This site reveals what can be reviewed by the VAR. The final decision is made by the referee, not the VAR. Goals: can be reviewed by the VAR, and it is up to the ref to decide whether or not to award the goal. Penalties: can be reviewed by the VAR, as in last nights incident. Still up to the ref. Red Card: incidents can be reviewed by the VAR to indicate whether or not a red card is vindicated. Mistaken Identity: to ensure the red card is given to the culprit, not an innocent player. From the above, the VAR cannot review an incorrect off-side call, only one that wasn't given. The ref has the final call, but he would be unwise to stand by a case of Mistaken Identity on his part, not that this is a frequent occurrence. As mentioned earlier, it is up to the ref to make the final call, and last night Shaun Evans took far too long. He was, initially, lightning fast to point to the penalty spot. He should have been equally as fast in dealing with the review. Of course, the VAR may well have contributed to the delay. Whatever the reasons, it smacked of incompetence.

Yep - consistent selection of things to review and then fast decisions - they should be the goals. If it can't be fine-tuned to deliver that then it'll only stuff up the game.

The video 'Roar score off a handball' showing on this article highlights my concerns about the VAR. It may be a handball, it's not clear to me after four views so it may not be, but if we are to view this goal, we should view them all. In that match a penalty was awarded to Sydney against a Roar high boot, but the Sydney player came from behind and may not have been seen by the Roar player before she raised her boot. No penalty in that case (noting that the angle of the VAR gives different impressions as the lack of depth on video can be quite deceptive). If we're going to highlight or review one, we must be consistent and review all. In the A League Roar had a goal overruled because of an offside play two plays before. Yet in the week before, Phoenix were wrongly ruled off-side from a great scoring opportunity v Sydney FC and the VAR was not used, at all. If we are going to use the VAR we must be consistent and not selective. My preference would be to give the game back to the fans. If the VAR can not decide within the normal flow of the game, don't allow it,

Fair enough but I must have been sitting in a low IQ section of the stands - we were all wondering WTF was going on.

"I think I might have misinterpreted the VAR protocol – but even so that kind of illustrates a point i.e. nobody is quite sure who is in charge once there is a video review." Sorry, but that's just not true. The match officials have been briefed & they know what's going on. I feel I know what's going on. The only issue last night was that it took so long to adjudicate on the Mills handball incident. That's because it was a difficult decision. Did it touch the hand? From the vision, I think it did. That's the extent of the VAR. Did it touch the hand? YES, or NO. Then, it's up to the human to decide if an offence has occurred. I would've said "no offence, no penalty", but I can understand how others might say "yes, it's handball & penalty". But, that's got nothing to do with VAR. VAR just provides vision that the ref might have missed.

I think I might have misinterpreted the VAR protocol - but even so that kind of illustrates a point i.e. nobody is quite sure who is in charge once there is a video review. The VAR principles are written in passive voice so it's unclear who has final say. The longer process description says the ref makes the final decision. I'm guessing the lawyers would have a field day with that as well.

Nem, I would prefer the VAR were eliminated did the next round of matches and instead effort put into improving the behaviour of players and coaches instead. If Rugby can do it so can we.

There is scope for the VAR official to change a decision if the referee 'clearly' got it wrong. You could drive a truckload of lawyers through a loophole like that. From where I was sitting and having seen the replays, last night's handball wasn't a handball - arm not raised, head turned away, and clearly no intent. So I'd argue the ref clearly got it wrong. As I understand the VAR protocol, a different VAR might have over-ruled the ref. If I was Perth fan I'd be furious the VAR didn't over-rule, but I'm not, so I'm not. Waz makes a valid point - the delay kills the atmosphere. The protocol says accuracy takes precedence over speed when a decision is being reviewed. But that is kind of nonsensical when the decision is subjective. Accuracy is irrelevant for decisions like the handball last night. Clearly, everyone thinks the ball struck MIlls' hand, so it's only a question of intent. The ref could have watched the replays a hundred times and still not formed an accurate judgement about Mills' intent. Ditto for the Carney penalty - you'd have to know how many newtons of force were applied to Carney's back to know if his faint and the resultant penalty were justified. Again, I'd say the ref got it wrong. I'm a biased Sydney FC fan and still I reckon the first 2 penalties weren't penalties.But it's a subjective decision and that's what the ref is paid to make, more qualified to make and better positioned to make. Maybe the VAR should only come into play if the ref didn't see something. In both last night's cases he did see what happened and made a judgement - why waste time reviewing the decision?

Nemesis- I have just viewed an excellent internet presentation , an 'official" explanation from the referees on Rule 11 accompanied with diagrams and figures. Unfortunately the "Maccarone incident" is not covered by any of the explanations, leading me to consider that other "unofficial edict" put out some years ago, that when in doubt, the attacking team should always be given the benefit of the doubt. Cheers jb.

That's exactly how it is used. Plus the ref also asks the VAR to check if he has missed something of significance that would impact decisions in 4 specific moments of matches.

"Personally I don’t want football to be right or clinical – I want it to be fast, passionate, emotional, dynamic" Yes, totally agree. But, let's be clear, Waz. If VAR were eliminated tomorrow, are you saying you would never again complain about "the FFA is a farce, a shambles"; if the official miss an incident, a player is incorrectly given a penalty, or a goal is scored from an offside position?