The season’s early weeks were relatively quiet but subsequent mishaps show VAR controversy is not going away yetFor a couple of weeks, it looked as if they’d nailed it. A fortnight into the new season and there had been barely a murmur of complaint about referees or their video assistants. Urged to let the game flow, all available evidence from the Premier League suggested referees were doing exactly that.Even the lines used to determine offsides had been revolutionised (translation: made slightly thicker) in order to put an end to ridiculous decisions determined by rogue toenails and armpits. “Effectively we have given back 20 goals to the game that were deemed offside last season,” said Mike Riley, the referees chief, who...
After three decades reporting on the game for the Observer and Guardian, I’m bowing out. Here’s a parting shot, along with a few cherished memoriesWhen I joined the Observer in 1990 the country was just rediscovering its love of the national game, thanks to Gazza’s tears and the BBC’s cultured coverage of Italia 90 drawing a line under the careless 1980s, a decade when one horrific disaster after another followed from the general assumption that football supporters were a troublesome subspecies barely worth anyone’s care and attention.In a couple more years the advent of the Premier League would massively increase the game’s prosperity and visibility, allowing grounds to be made safer and more attractive to a wider section of society....
The academic and former Athletic Bilbao head of talent ID explains why the issue is not as simple as it appearsLast month I was chatting to my friend Ernesto Valverde, the former Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona coach who I got to know well when I was Athletic’s head of talent ID. For once we were disagreeing. He, like many in football, thought that the temporary rule change to allow five substitutions from an extended bench of nine players favoured the big clubs. I insisted it wouldn’t.At the time it felt like the debate didn’t matter much either way, given the rule was only expected to last until the end of the season. Now, however, Ifab has agreed to extend it,...
Goals should not be ruled out because an armpit was ahead of the last defender but issues with remote refereeing run deeperThank goodness for Arsène Wenger. It is about time someone with a genuine appreciation of the game stepped in to prevent VAR’s remote officials tying themselves in unnecessary knots over something as straightforward as the offside rule.What Wenger is suggesting, in his capacity as Fifa’s head of global development, is a slight variation on the concept of daylight between an attacking player and the last defender. The former Arsenal manager believes that if any part of a player’s body that can score a goal is level or onside – ie anything except hand or arm – he should not...
The system is too often introducing travesties into games instead of clearing them up and changes are neededDissatisfaction with VAR seems to be back with a vengeance after the incidents of last weekend, with a meeting of Premier League clubs scheduled for next month to discuss the implementation of remote technology and look into the reasons referees have been avoiding their pitchside monitors.Most of us imagined the ability to check a quick replay on the sidelines would be all officials needed to sort out contentious incidents not readily picked up in real-time. When VAR was being dreamed up the general idea seemed to be that travesties on the pitch that led to the referee being besieged by aggrieved defenders –...