All fair points, my biggest issue with refs and VAR is the secrecy of communications and the general lack of accountability.
If a player has a poor game, the fans and media will slag them off, the manager will dig them out, whether that is privately 1-on-1, or in the changing room in front of the team, or publicly in the media (if the manager is a particularly nasty cunt and has no people skills). If a manager has a shocker and gets their team selection, subs wrong, again they get slagged off by fans, the media and pundits and likely have to answer for the bad performance to the board.
If a ref or VAR have a bad game, they close ranks around the individual, fine or suspend any manager that has the audacity to speak out against the ref and protect them at all cost. Very rarely do you see refs get dropped and it stick, most of the time it will be 1 or 2 games then they get brought back into the mix, that isnât really a punishment. I personally think 3 easy fixes would solve a number of the issues, but I doubt that PGMOL and the FA would allow them.
- All communications between refs, lines people and VAR are broadcast over the stadium pa system, so everyone can hear what is being discussed and the process and reasoning that goes into making a decision. Broadcasters would be in a position to make sure fans watching all around the world know what is then going on.
I doubt PGMOL would allow this as my honest opinion is it would show that most officials donât fully know, understand howw to interpret the laws of the game and they would be shown to be incompetent.
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Post game, both managers and the 2 captaisn get to sit down with the officials to go through the game and clarify any decisions or arguments without fear of any penalty or reprisal. Once that meeting has taken place they canât critisise the officials. Any media prior to that meeting, then as long as they arenât slanderous they should be allowed to critisise a refâs performance, but once they have met the ref and aired their complaints, then they canât comment publicly.
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I would overhaul VAR. Firstly, I would split VAR and refâs, you can do 1 or the other, but not both. I would also do away with Stockley Park, and have VAR at the ground, so that they are actually part of the ref team, and I would use it in a similar way to RU, where the ref is able to use VAR to look back and assist them to get the right decision. Under itâs currnet demise, refâs donât like VAR as it is there to point out their fuck ups, change the way it is used to be another tool for them to be able to access and I think it would be more favorably veiwed by refs.
I would also think there should be a minimum standard that each ref should be achieving, whether that be done every season, or every 2nd season and if they fail to reach that standard then they need to be dropped.
