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 GrimRob |
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But we're still relying on humans.
The only difference now is that humans have tech to help them analyse moments, but we can still mess it up by not using the tech properly, or just not thinking clearly under pressure.
I think the biggest shift in the whole VAR debate is to re-educate everyone — players, managers, pundits, media, fans — that it's there to simply eradicate the absolute howlers.
That's it.
Contentious decisions will remain. Referees may one week call every soft challenge a penalty, then the next week be more lenient and wave them away.
I think people get wound up because they expect correct decisions to be made 100% of the time. It's fine to aim for that, but it's never going to be the case.
Football ebbs and flows. There's a lot of interpretation involved in every 'coming together'.
Personally, if the ref didn't give the penalty at the time and VAR are 100% certain it is a penalty then fair play, make that call. If they're not 100% certain then leave the decision with the on-field ref.
The problem is the rules of football leave so much to interpretation. The only way to achieve better consistency in the 1% of decisions that VAR are involved with is to hand the whole thing over to AI. A model trained on what is a decision and what is not a decision should be much more consistent than different sets of officials and it would be able to make that decision instantly rather than spend ages pondering over every camera angle as it could "see" every angle in a few milliseconds. Offsides leading to goals would be much easier to try first than penalties as it is so much simpler. The vast majority of the decisions on the pitch are still made by the referee and assistants though. Maybe one day, like tennis has, every decision can be made by technology, but there's a way to go first! |
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| Brummie Codfather |
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Too many people forget all the many good VAR decisions and highlight just the bad ones. It's a work in progress but is an improvement on the old system of relying on humans. It will be the same when we get driverless cars, everyone will complain about the handful of deaths caused by the cars and forget that humans used to kill one million of one another every year. Classic case of confirmation bias.
It absolutely isn’t an upgrade on the old system. If you look at one metric (correct decisions) it’s an improvement but that doesn’t take into account the knock on effects (impact on celebrations, separation of top level to lower levels, delay to play, lack of visibility in the stadium). I want to enjoy football, not stand around a stadium no idea what’s going on waiting to see if someone’s hand is offside. It’s excrement, implemented because there’s ok much money in football to risk bad decisions and of no benefit to the fan. |
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| lew chaterleys lover |
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The problem is the rules of football leave so much to interpretation. The only way to achieve better consistency in the 1% of decisions that VAR are involved with is to hand the whole thing over to AI. A model trained on what is a decision and what is not a decision should be much more consistent than different sets of officials and it would be able to make that decision instantly rather than spend ages pondering over every camera angle as it could "see" every angle in a few milliseconds. Offsides leading to goals would be much easier to try first than penalties as it is so much simpler.
The vast majority of the decisions on the pitch are still made by the referee and assistants though. Maybe one day, like tennis has, every decision can be made by technology, but there's a way to go first!
A tennis match is completely different. 2 players, few rules apart from whether the ball is in or out. Football will never be run by robots, as it is has rules, but so many of them are open to human interpretation which is as it should be. An elbow in the face can be a red card or an accident. If they stuck to goal line technology and accept that refs just like players make mistakes all would be well. Last week Haaland misses an absolutely open goal and shrugs his shoulders; the ref makes a similarly bad mistake and he turns into a raging monster. |
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| GrimRob |
| December 7, 2023, 10:00am |
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A tennis match is completely different. 2 players, few rules apart from whether the ball is in or out.
Football will never be run by robots, as it is has rules, but so many of them are open to human interpretation which is as it should be. An elbow in the face can be a red card or an accident. If they stuck to goal line technology and accept that refs just like players make mistakes all would be well. Last week Haaland misses an absolutely open goal and shrugs his shoulders; the ref makes a similarly bad mistake and he turns into a raging monster.
Most of the decisions in football are pretty trivial and could easily be made by AI. Throw-ins, Corners even Offsides. We have millions of examples which could be used to train models and I bet there would be far less obviously wrong decisions than now. I suspect the harder decisions are pretty trivial compared to something like driving a car which AI models can already do. |
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| Bigdog |
| December 7, 2023, 10:18am |
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Quoted from 141269
Man Utd V Chelsea
Not a fan of either team but as a football fan VAR is killing the game. Penalty given for inadvertently standing on somebody's foot long after the ball is played so in no way did the foot clash change the play.
Something needs to change.
Wasn't the worst decision VAR made in the game. Strictly speaking it was a penalty, but only ten minutes or so later, Sterling's foot was stamped on late too. Decision by VAR, no further action for a very similar offence. Although I'm lost for words on many VAR decisions that overrule the referee's original decision, I've been more flabbergasted with many VAR turn a blind eye to. There was an analysis of these a couple of seasons back, and if applied correctly it showed some teams were affected by as much as eight places in the league table. VAR is making as many mistakes by omission as referees that affect results of games. So my question is, what is the point of all of these delays in emotion? Arguing about refereeing decisions used to be part of the game. That still remains, only with additional arguments about VAR on top. Have there been more correct decisions overall? Probably, yes. Has VAR improved the sport of football? No. |
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| lew chaterleys lover |
| December 7, 2023, 10:38am |
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Most of the decisions in football are pretty trivial and could easily be made by AI. Throw-ins, Corners even Offsides. We have millions of examples which could be used to train models and I bet there would be far less obviously wrong decisions than now. I suspect the harder decisions are pretty trivial compared to something like driving a car which AI models can already do.
You surely don't want the game to be reffed by AI? |
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| lew chaterleys lover |
| December 7, 2023, 10:48am |
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It absolutely isn’t an upgrade on the old system. If you look at one metric (correct decisions) it’s an improvement but that doesn’t take into account the knock on effects (impact on celebrations, separation of top level to lower levels, delay to play, lack of visibility in the stadium).
I want to enjoy football, not stand around a stadium no idea what’s going on waiting to see if someone’s hand is offside.
It’s excrement, implemented because there’s ok much money in football to risk bad decisions and of no benefit to the fan.
I totally agree. The data says better decisions are being made but that simple piece of data is completely out of context for the wider implications of the game, even if it is true and does it take into account what it misses bearing in mind every decision has a knock on effect? Human beings are what matters; without the imperfections of humans the game would be flawed from the other direction and would turn a lot of people off. Like a lot of things today VAR is an out of control juggernaut that seems to bypass the people that matter - the fans. |
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| louth_in_the_south |
| December 7, 2023, 10:53am |
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I’m going to get a lot of ❌ for this but the VAR decisions at Southampton last season took the shine off the result for me . A bit of a hollow victory considering the questionable decisions that went in our favour.
It’s killing the game , but as with everything PL it’s all about things apparently being fair and the £££ that’s at stake .
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| Southwark Mariner |
| December 7, 2023, 10:55am |
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I guess Sky could provide the funds for the AI ref...They'd want to name it something footbally too though...SKYNET
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| GrimRob |
| December 7, 2023, 11:13am |
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You surely don't want the game to be reffed by AI?
Wouldn't mind seeing a trial in a lower league somewhere for a season. If it gets more decisions right than human officials wouldn't it be better? Everyone says ideally you don't notice the referee. Plenty of people thinking about it, e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/.....erie-a-b2404962.htmlProbably inevitable at some stage. When you look at how much has changed |
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