Durhamfootman wrote:If nothing else, this game might just give the authorities a vision of the future, and give them the opportunity to tighten up on when and where and how VAR is used and the new rules that have seemingly been brought in to support it
It needs to be smarter and it needs to be quicker. Football will look a very different game if it has to include umpteen 5 or 6 minute breaks in each half
I've actually lost track of how many times that game was interrupted
stop/start footie..... it's what the world's crying out for
no VAR interference in the last 3 matches. there have been judgement calls from the referees, penalty shouts turned down and the like, and it hasn't gone upstairs, which it has been doing all tournament.
Part of that might well be that the on field officials have got all the big decisions right and correctly applied the new rules, but I also believe that the VAR bods have been told not to interfere unless it is (as Ginger suggested) a clear case of scoring from an offside position, or something dangerous, or something else factual rather than subjective.
If they have taken this decision, then they've made the right decision in my view
But the refs lately have been very good, and so the system has worked. Are all refs that good? If they were we wouldn't need VAR
For all I've been complaining that VAR has been used too much for things that are subjective rather than objective, I would like to see it being used in cases where a player has
clearly taken a dive in the box. Not the marginal ones where there was some sort of minimal contact and they went down like they'd been shot, but for instances like the 2 last night, where the replay clearly and indisputably showed that there was no contact whatsoever from the defender and the attacker was just trying to deceive the ref
Both of those players last night deserved a yellow card and as long as the ref accepts the call from VAR and doesn't stop the game to have a look, there would be no hold up to the game, because the card can been shown at the next natural break in play.
there is an opportunity here to stamp on that sort of thing before it infects the women's game