Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
Was talking to a mate about this the other night - Spurs season ticket holder
He says he basically doesn't celebrate goals now almost until there's a kick off. Because till then who knows if the goal will actually be given?
And there's always been that chance of course but now you're having to wait in case the ball randomly brushed someone's arm, because now that's hand ball. Or someone might be a pixel offside. It's complete bullshit.
VAR is not wrong in principle - I think it was used well in the Euros. But the PL are using it really poorly. They have to sort out the offside nonsense. No-one cares if a player is a millimetre offside. We scored a goal at Stamford Bridge some years ago - Van Persie if I remember rightly, and he was miles offside. Obviously I laughed my head off that the goal was given but if VAR deals with stuff like that then fair enough. But when you're having to draw lines and zoom in to see if any tiny part of a player was offside then just let it go. If you're having to look that closely then it clearly wasn't obvious. Get on with it.
And the handball thing is nonsense. Defenders having to put their arms behind their back for fear of an attacker blasting it at their arm from 3 yards and hand ball being given. Utter nonsense.
If you go all the way back to early sport it was the exact opposite of what we have now. Leaving technology to one side, I'm sure just as many mistakes were made back then as are made today but, of course, there was no grubby TV producer honing in on everything in slow motion so fans can feel hard done by after the fact. And in the beginning there was sportsmanship. Mistakes were made but they were genuine mistakes, so forgiven as such. It's the irrational pursuit of perfect fairness governed by technology rather than the good will of the participants that's the problem. TV is not there to solve problems, it's there to create them as a cynical form of entertainment. Refs can't be trusted, players can't be trusted not to cheat and dive around the place and try to win advantage by every underhand method. So you bring in VAR to try to sort the mess out. It's the wrong way around and a lost cause from the start. It should be the human beings that change, not the rules.

What is it, 25, 30 years since Robbie Fowler dived in the box but recovered enough dignity to wave the penalty away? If the people directly involved in sport could just have a bit more respect for the game and themselves things would improve. It's possible, but improbable.