How to improve VAR in Scotland | Fitbaw Talk
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to this
00:06 National World Pip-A-Talk bonus special.
00:09 Martin Simpson joined once again
00:10 by Lewis Anderson and Susanna Sealy.
00:13 And we're gonna be asking
00:14 how does Scottish football solve its VAR problem?
00:17 So we could sit here and discuss everything
00:21 we hate about VAR, which we probably will to an extent.
00:24 But really the purpose of this conversation
00:26 is looking at assuming that VAR is here to stay,
00:29 how do we actually improve that technology?
00:33 Not just in the context of the game,
00:35 but for the supporters as well.
00:37 And the first thing I want to do is suggest
00:41 that whether the referees like it or not,
00:45 this needs to be more transparent.
00:47 We need to do what rugby union does.
00:50 The referee needs to be mic'd up
00:52 and we need to not only do the people watching on the TV,
00:56 but ideally the people in the stands.
00:59 In rugby you can buy referee links
01:00 so you can hear what he's saying.
01:03 Wherever they go, they're full up chilling and do that.
01:05 I doubt it.
01:06 But certainly if you're watching a game on TV,
01:08 you need to understand the conversation
01:10 that the VAR is having with the referee.
01:13 And to me that is a huge improvement right off the bat.
01:17 I don't know how you guys feel about that.
01:18 Lewis?
01:19 - Yeah, I think that's a good point, Martin.
01:23 I think we can take a lesson
01:27 from how rugby are doing it.
01:29 I think obviously we all know that inconsistencies
01:33 is still such a headache here.
01:36 I think the one thing that I would say
01:39 is that we need better angles
01:42 in terms of from a television perspective.
01:45 I don't think we have enough cameras
01:47 that offer different viewpoints of certain incidents.
01:51 Obviously that kind of equipment won't come cheap,
01:57 but transparency is a big thing.
02:01 I think VAR is the bane
02:06 of every Scottish football fan's life at this moment.
02:09 And certainly the biggest thing it needs to improve
02:11 is the speed in which these decisions are being made.
02:16 I think it brings in more doubts to match officials.
02:24 We've seen that it's just taken far too long to come to it.
02:29 And having someone, a more professional figure,
02:34 there's a lot of chat around Scottish referees
02:37 not being full time
02:38 and how we can go about trying to professionalise that.
02:42 Just having someone there that can provide,
02:46 rather than reading off the big screen what's going on,
02:52 someone that's actually explaining the decision to you
02:55 to give fans a clearer understanding of what's being made.
02:59 Because a lot of the time,
03:00 the referees are going to the VAR pitch side monitors
03:04 and fans are a bit miffed as to why that's even the case
03:08 in certain circumstances.
03:09 So that's something that needs to be addressed
03:12 and needs to happen fast.
03:14 - Look, the TV experience is bad enough as it is.
03:17 Like I say, all you need to do is be able to hear
03:20 the conversation the referee is having.
03:22 Is the referee even having a conversation
03:24 with the VAR officials half the time
03:26 or the VAR officials are just telling them what to do?
03:28 I don't even know that.
03:29 I don't even know if the referee's saying anything for them
03:31 or if he's just awaiting instruction.
03:33 It's that murky and unclear as to what's going on.
03:38 But the only thing worse than the TV experience
03:41 of these things happening is the experience in the stands,
03:44 which we've all had.
03:45 'Cause all you've got is a screen that comes up
03:47 and says VAR is checking a penalty or a red card
03:50 or a offside.
03:51 And if you've gone away for a pie
03:53 or gone to use the facilities
03:55 or looked at your phone for 10 seconds
03:58 'cause someone sent you a message
03:59 and you've missed that in real time,
04:01 you have literally zero idea what is going on
04:04 or what's being checked.
04:06 We need to have this.
04:07 If you're going to be a Scottish Premiership Stadium,
04:10 you need to have a big screen in the stadium
04:12 and the supporters need to be able to see
04:14 what the referee is looking at.
04:16 - And yeah, obviously that means
04:18 you're going to get what you get in rugby.
04:19 You're going to get the replays
04:20 and every time the incident happens,
04:21 you're going to have the crowd going,
04:22 "Oh, oh, come on ref, that's a disgrace."
04:25 I'm sorry, are we not giving the referees enough credit
04:27 to assume that they can deal with that?
04:29 'Cause they deal with a lot worse.
04:31 So I don't know.
04:33 Is that too much to ask Susanna?
04:35 To have every ground, to have a big screen in it
04:37 where the people there could actually see
04:40 what the referee is looking at
04:41 rather than just a screen that says
04:43 VAR is checking something.
04:44 - No, I certainly agree.
04:45 I think, I mean, I don't know the financial aspects
04:49 of how much all that would cost for the individual.
04:52 I mean, obviously, Seldickham Rangers,
04:54 you can imagine they'd be able to do that
04:55 much more easily than like Livingston, Ross County.
04:59 But they do, it is unfair, especially as, you know,
05:03 if you're going as a spectator,
05:05 Scotland is not, it's not often a kind place weather-wise.
05:10 So if you're having to spend five minutes
05:13 waiting for a decision to be made
05:15 when that should be five minutes
05:17 that you're watching the game,
05:18 then it's a miserable experience.
05:20 And if you don't, as you say,
05:22 if you don't know what's going on,
05:23 I mean, rugby, they do have a much better system
05:26 that you then can hear it.
05:28 I think also when it takes, as, you know, Lewis mentioned,
05:32 the sort of the length of time that a lot of it takes,
05:34 if that then equates to having seven minutes of added time,
05:38 I think that's another sort of farcical error
05:41 where rugby may, I think they've probably got it right
05:44 in that they stop the clock while that's all going on
05:47 and then need to sort of play the end.
05:49 But yeah, I think it should definitely be addressed
05:54 that fans both at home and in the stadium
05:58 need to know what's going on.
05:59 - Yeah, there was a fascinating segment
06:02 that Sky recently recorded as well,
06:05 where we were kind of, during a game at halftime,
06:09 they kind of gave an insight into basically
06:13 it was Crawford Allen, the head of Scottish FA refereeing,
06:16 was discussing how he's kind of felt VAR has gone so far.
06:20 And he was talking about how those discussions
06:22 are being made to kind of improve aspects of it.
06:26 And Sky did air some of the dialogue
06:29 that was recorded between Nick Walsh
06:32 during a game in Paisley
06:34 and the VAR room at Clydesdale House.
06:37 So there is, you know, conversations being had
06:40 in the background.
06:41 It's just whether or not this will be, you know,
06:43 rolled out kind of on a greater scale to supporters,
06:48 you know, in the not too distant future.
06:50 - Well, we use the rugby example a lot.
06:52 And look, the rugby TMO, it's far from perfect.
06:57 It's a lot better than what football has with VAR.
07:00 And it is worth saying things like stopping the clock.
07:03 Rugby's not as free-flowing a game as football.
07:06 So obviously when you have video assistant technology
07:08 in tennis or cricket, that's very easy
07:11 because you're playing very structured sets.
07:14 So whether it's, you know, a frame in tennis
07:17 or a over in cricket or whatever it is,
07:20 I don't even know the term for cricket.
07:21 I'm sorry, Susanna.
07:23 - I enjoyed your attempt at it.
07:24 - The ball, a guy throwing a ball at some wickets
07:27 and then there's a break in play
07:30 where you can check something.
07:31 And rugby's less free-flowing.
07:33 It is still a free-flowing game for the most part,
07:36 but you have a lot more set pieces
07:37 and a lot more stoppages.
07:39 And that gives them the time to actually check things.
07:41 Obviously in football,
07:43 you have corners, free kicks and throw-ins.
07:46 But if a team wants to play at a certain tempo,
07:48 they want to do this quickly.
07:49 So it's a lot harder to see how that fits in,
07:54 but there is a way to fit it in.
07:56 But the third and sort of final thing
07:58 that annoys me most about VAR
07:59 is just the common sense aspect of it all.
08:03 If we go down to England,
08:04 I think the best example for me
08:06 was the Liverpool goal
08:08 that should have been a goal,
08:09 but was disallowed.
08:11 And they released the audio from it.
08:13 And I'd have to paraphrase,
08:15 obviously I don't know off the top of my head,
08:16 but essentially it was like,
08:18 okay, stick with your on-field decision,
08:21 which they meant award a goal,
08:23 but the ref's on-field decision was offside
08:26 or a foul, I forget.
08:28 And then, so the ref, no goal.
08:33 The goalie kicks it out to the right back.
08:35 The right back kicks it back to the goalie.
08:37 And in that 10 second frame,
08:38 they've said, no, it should have been a goal.
08:40 Okay, tell him to stop playing award the goal.
08:41 We can't, he's resumed the game.
08:43 So again, in that time,
08:45 the goalkeepers kicked it to the right back
08:47 and the right backs kicked it back to the goalie.
08:49 What exactly would be the problem?
08:50 We're just going, I know, hold on lads, it was a goal.
08:53 Common sense.
08:56 And as we record this,
08:57 we're coming off the back of the VIA Play Cup semifinals.
09:01 Martin Boyle's offside in the Hibs-Aberdeen game.
09:04 Another one, like I said, as I said in the show earlier,
09:06 I've watched that 10 times
09:08 and I'm still not fully convinced either way.
09:10 If it's an offside decision
09:12 and it takes you five minutes to review it,
09:15 that lets you know that there's not a clear
09:18 and obvious mistake there.
09:19 Yeah, you can draw the lines and say that his shoulders
09:22 fractionally ahead of the right back's knee.
09:24 It shouldn't get to that stage.
09:26 It should get to, is he offside?
09:29 Well, I can't really tell.
09:30 And you're looking at a freeze frame of it.
09:32 It's like, if you can't really tell,
09:34 then the referee should just stick
09:35 with his on-field decision.
09:36 If it's going to take you six minutes
09:38 to review an offside decision,
09:40 I don't think any fan's going to get annoyed
09:42 if you get it wrong by the length of a fingernail.
09:45 But that's just me.
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