After some questionable VAR decisions in our victory over Brentford, Jamie Reuben took to Twitter to suggest some much needed changes to the system to prevent the long and frustrating waits.
The 35-year-old put forward the idea that officials on VAR should only be allowed to see two replays of an incident with a maximum of one minute to make a decision.
If the VAR refs cannot come up with a decision almost immediately, then it cannot possibly be deemed a clear and obvious error and the on-field referee’s decision should be upheld.
This comes after Newcastle suffered twice in Saturday’s fixture with Alexander Isak conceding a dubious penalty and Callum Wilson being denied his 11th goal of the season due to a handball.
If nothing else, this adaptation to the current system would at least speed up the whole process and avoid the excruciatingly long waits that teams have had to endure all season.
Here’s what our co-owner had to say on Twitter:
‘Not specific about today – but it’s clear VAR whilst a positive addition takes too much time and varies to inconsistently from game to game.
‘Perhaps we should allow VAR officials to review the play only twice for maximum one minute. If they can’t derive an opinion from that then it’s unlikely to be a clear and obvious mistake and the on pitch decision should then be allowed to proceed.‘
Well said Jamie,
I would add that it should be ex professional footballers in the VAR seat as they know the professional tricks of the trade that footballers use.
Joseph(Quote)
What a load of *****!
If you are using VAR you want a correct decision, not a fast one.
Speeding up the process by limiting the officials ability to get it right helps nobody.
The VAR decisions add a bit of excitement and atmosphere.
Do you agree with this or are you just trying to suck up to Reuben?
Daveys **** mate(Quote)
Daveys****mate :-
The problem with VAR is they are not even getting it right with all the time they are taking now.
If you had ex professional footballers who know what they looking at it would probably take no longer than a minute…. clear and obvious means just that.
If it takes the time it is taking now 2-3 minutes with absolute “nuggets”looking at it, it can’t be that clear and obvious.
Joseph(Quote)
Anything to do with VAR will always divide opinion x 1000 ! Too short/ long/ clear/ obvious ! Never been right never will be !
John Rochford(Quote)
I see following problems with VAR
1. Takes too long
2. When video is slowed down this always changes the view and not always for the good – this is the case in other sports as well (e.g Cricket and Rugby).
3. Experience/knowledge of officials in the VAR room
4 lack of automation – even using existing systems with AI offside decisions could be identified immediately – even if its used to identify which players are offside and then a human decides if they were interfering with play.
Improvement in all these areas are needed to bring ant sort of confidence in the VAR system
Steve Wood(Quote)
You win some…
You loose some..
Everything averages out at the end of the season.
Just like it used to. You can’t celebrate a goal for at least 2/3 minutes now.
Oh how I miss shouting at the ref about everything 😆.
Toony(Quote)