VAR is Going to Ruin Football!!!

[thegreatdom]

Good evening,

I just want to check peoples views on VAR and the impact it will have on football betting.

I personally think it is going to ruin football betting, how many matches have been decided by a referee or linesman error in the past. That will not happen any more, they will just let the goal be scored and then go and review it. 

From a betting perspective this gives the bookies more cover as there won’t be any wrong decisions made, also betting on the unders in goals could prove beneficial as goals won’t be wrongly given. 

I can see myself not betting on any matches that have VAR running as I have been losing bets lately where VAR has been used and feel that the bookies have an advantage that has not been reflected in the odds.

I’d like to know peoples thoughts on this.

Thanks

[Sir Puntalot]

@thegreatdom I hear you, but ask yourself this?

Your team gets 30 pens against them with VAR during next season, but you get only 1 VAR decision for you which wins you a cup - would you take that? ? 

[thegreatdom]

From a supporters point of view yes but from a betting point, defiantly not!!! ?

[StevieDay1983]

Personally, I don't think it will affect betting at all. You are more likely to get the correct outcome. Isn't it better to lose a bet to a correct decision than lose a bet because of an incorrect decision. As a Welshman and Cardiff City fan I can only say how much poor referee decisions have robbed us of what we've deserved over the years. Going back to Joe Jordan's handball against Wales in 1977 that stopped us from reaching the 1978 World Cup to the amount of awful referee decisions that contributed towards Cardiff getting relegated.

I absolutely back it. On a betting perspective, I think it actually adds more drama. The anticipation of finding out what a decision is. Too often as a player and a manager myself I've been on the wrong end of an injustice and if VAR can reduce those injustices by even 5% then I'm all for it.

[Torque]

Initially I was all for VAR. But I've seen enough games now to think it's ruining football as a spectacle. You can't celebrate a goal like you used to be able to because straight after the initial excitement you're wondering if VAR will take it away. It's always been the case of course that a goal can be chalked off, but the number of goals being ruled out since VAR was introduced must be orders of magnitude higher than it was when it was just down to the referee and linesman to decide. On top of that, it's not as though VAR is only disallowing goals that clearly should not be given - it's taking too long as well and the referee running to the side of the pitch to review an incident and watching it from all angles over and over again is sucking the momentum and flow out of football. And all for the referee to be none the wiser in a lot of cases about what the correct decision is and having to make a subjective decision, which is what a referee is meant to do in the first place but in real time without disrupting the game.

I thought VAR would be great for football because I was sold, like I imagine many others were, an impossible dream - that all referee mistakes could be eliminated. In theory that may be possible, in practice it isn't. Nobody should be surprised though when you think about how Match of the Day have been able to look at incidents multiple times for years without being able to decide whether the referee made the right decision - it's not always clear-cut and there is often ambiguity which means where one referee would make one decision, another referee would make a different one. For me, VAR should only be used to correct clear and obvious errors and that's all. Everything else should be left to the referee. Yes referees will continue to make mistakes, but it's been shown now over and over again that VAR isn't infallible either. Whether it's a person or a machine operated or interpreted by a person, the common denominator is a person and where there are people there will always be mistakes so the idea that VAR will eliminate mistakes is a fallacy. If the price of free-flowing football and being able to fully celebrate a goal in the knowledge that it's highly likely to stand is a few mistakes by the referee that's a price I'm prepared to pay - particularly as VAR is not a magic wand that will wave away mistakes.

[ojkenyon]

I suppose there is a new market to bet on, I found a bookie that would take a bet on how many VAR decisions there are in a game :D

[BillyHills]

11 minutes ago, ojkenyon said:

I suppose there is a new market to bet on, I found a bookie that would take a bet on how many VAR decisions there are in a game

@ojkenyon Welcome to PL mate.

I'm not sure there will be as many as people think.

[Trotter]

As an armchair fan I don't like it 

It's sucking the spontaneity out of the game

Imagine .......... England score a goal in the 90th minute of a world cup final ........... no point jumping up and down and hugging everyone in sight, go make a cup of tea and have a read of the newspaper whilst VAR decides if you have to celebrate or not

By which time the moment has passed

I'll take the odd wrong decsion to keep the game flowing

Not sure it'll have much effect on betting ......... though obviously you're going to be mad when a VAR decision costs you a winner and Sod's Law dictates that'll happen a lot more than VAR giving you a winner

You'd think that there'll be a lot more penalties and early indications confirm this. I think they said there were more penalties in the recent U21 championships than in the previous three championships combined ........... so maybe more goals for under/over betting and penalty takers a good bet for first scorer

But obviously bookies will be on top of this and shorten the odds commensurately

[Gray306]

I can understand the logic behind it, in that correct decisions should be given but having watched a few games with VAR it is still the opinion of of one person and how many people totally agree on a decision even if you can watch it 1000 times in slo mo or however you want to view it, just look at the discussions from pundits when viewing dodgy decisions over and over again, hardly ever total agreement.

[StevieDay1983]

It's interesting to see everyone's take on it. I still think it wasn't that long ago when we were all bemoaning that the technology was there to be used to stop injustices happening in football. I'm not saying VAR is perfect. I'd still like to see each team have two reviews in the bank per game. If there's a controversial decision then they can opt to use VAR. If they are out of reviews then they have to go with the ref's decision. I still think football with VAR now is better than football without VAR. Not flawless but certainly glad to see it reducing injustices and cheating.

[Trotter]

I think part of the problem is that VAR is coinciding with the introduction of the 'new' handball rules.......... most of the controversy appears to be about the handball rule which VAR is highlighting

Perfect example last night in the Algeria-Nigeria semi final

A Nigerian player smacked the ball from outside the area .... it was heading straight for one of his team-mates whio ducked out of the way at the last minute and the ball hit the defender stood behind him on the arm. He didn't have time to either put his hand out towards the ball or to get out of the way ......... the fact that the ball hit his arm was purely accidental

No way was that intentional handball .... but a penalty was eventually given after VAR. To my mind that is a ridiculous new law and because it was given by VAR, then VAR is getting some of the flack

Where VAR deserves the flack is that after the incident the game carried on, the goalie collected the ball and passed upfield, the Algerians got into the final third ........ then there was a foul and the game stopped and at that point the ref was alerted to VAR for a potential penaly. Lots of hanging around and several minutes later the penalty was taken. That's ruining the free flow of the game........ well worse than that, the game is carryiong on but recent play is effectively being cancelled to check something that happened before the current phase of play. We'll never know if what we're watching is real or just some temporary action before we go back in time

 

[harry_rag]

Just been reading the RP pre-season pullout which was in today's paper and there's an interesting spread on the introduction of VAR and the impending rule changes (with focus on the handball rule change). Bookies are expecting a lot more bets on penalties and goalscorer bets on penalty takers and are gearing up to cut prices accordingly but opinion from the referee community put me more in a "don't believe the hype" frame of mind. There's no evidence to suggest that the introduction of VAR has lead to an increase in penalties being awarded in other major European leagues but the handball rule could change that. It did cause carnage in some of the Summer International tournaments though there were signs, part way through the Women's World Cup, of the use of VAR being severely reined back as it was becoming embarrassing.

Going to see if any firms are offering prices that offer value in going low on total penalties awarded next season. Be interested in any views on this topic. There were 103 in the EPL last season, 80 in 17/18 and 106 in 16/17.

Where would you pitch the line for an over/under bet this season at 10/11 either way (true odds, without factoring in likely weight of money for overs)? I'm thinking maybe 115.

[StevieDay1983]

On 7/15/2019 at 1:57 PM, Trotter said:

I think part of the problem is that VAR is coinciding with the introduction of the 'new' handball rules.......... most of the controversy appears to be about the handball rule which VAR is highlighting

As a defender, the handball rule's evolution over the past 20 years has really annoyed me. The amount of times I've seen teams concede a pen when it's been a classic case of ball to hand but the ref has given handball. I think the concept of ball to hand has pretty much died which is depressing. Makes it very difficult to play to your potential as a defender.

[Xtc12]

The last week has made me rethink my thoughts on VAR. Penalty in Super Cup, Rodri getting manhandled in the area yesterday and the disallowing of the Jesus goal yesterday. 

It was brought in to cut out these mistakes and we still have drama.

One of the things that is annoying me these days is the offside rule. Think it's time to go back to the old way if someone is offside put the flag up no matter where he is on the pitch , stop trying to make out if he was interfering with play or not. 

Agueros goal yesterday - When the ball was played to De Bruyne, Aguero was a yard offside and had an advantage over the defenders when the ball was played into the area. Just can't understand it.