25 Aug 2023 12:42:20
Apologies to the Eds if this is deemed irrelevant.

In case you guys have not noticed yet, Mike Dean, who was the VAR responsible for the match against Spurs about a year ago, has admitted that he intentionally did not send Taylor to the screen to protect him from further grief. I don't believe that he did it to harm Chelsea in any way, however this confession does pose some implications in my opinion.

While this decision obviously cost us the win and 2 points, I think this decision may have more far reaching implications for VAR in general. I'm generally not a conspiracy theorist, but for me this does put the state of VAR in general into question. We have all seen odd decisions being made throughout the years, not just in our games but as a general problem. For me, this potentially affects the overall reliability of VAR. How many of those weird calls over the years have been intentional?

I should point out that I don't think the majority of these decision have been intentional, but regardless Dean's confession puts massive question marks over VAR.

From my point of view, VAR should be a separate entity with third-party officials involved to avoid any inherent bias.

ED001, I would love your opinion on this if you don't mind?

{Ed001's Note - I have always said this would be a problem while PGMOL run it. You have refs expected to overrule someone else that they know and have to train with etc. There were always going to be issues. VAR should be in the hands of specialists. They should not have anything to do with referees and be kept separate. Their job should solely be to decide whether or not to refer refs to monitors and not actually make decisions other than offsides or if an incident was inside or outside the box etc. Matters of fact. The rest should be still down to the on field ref but with VAR there to send him to the screen to have a look again for himself. There is no need for them to talk and communicate at all. All they need is a buzzer or similar to let the ref know he needs to go to the screen. That way we won't have shady secret discussions none of us are privy to.

At the moment, even if Dean and others are making decisions like this out of empathy with the ref, it is altering the results of the game - borderline match/spot fixing.}

1.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 15:59:01
100% ed001 . Nice read.

{Ed001's Note - thank you Wheely. I was on my soapbox there!}

2.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 16:41:00
Putting aside what it says about Dean and refereeing in general just two things for me.

Ed’s point about match/ spot fixing is well made and surely deserves further investigation.

Also and this is a “what might have been point”, if points lost or points gained had a serious effect on the outcome on league positions what would have happened.?

We potentially had two points taken off our total, I can’t remember if that had any material effect on our league position or did the one point the spuds got have any effect on there league position?

3.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 16:57:28
Been a fix from day 1.

4.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 17:21:15
Thanks for the reply Ed! I fully agree with your points. I personally think a third-party panel of video analysts with full understanding of the rules would provide us with more credible and reliable decisions.

Also Tom, assuming we had won that game, it would actually have changed the final position for both us and Spurs. We would've moved ahead of Crystal Palace to finish 11th, and Spurs would've been overtaken by Brentford and finished 9th. While all this is obviously speculation, Dean's decision theoretically made a difference in terms of the final league standings.

As I said, I don't think he did it to harm Chelsea specifically, but my biggest issue with this is the lack of integrity he showed in the situation. While the refs obviously face high levels of abuse it should never be a reason for literally breaking the rules of the game!

{Ed001's Note - it also calls into question all his other decisions and non-decisions throughout his career. If he is that weak that he will do that in a video booth, where he is shielded, what kind of things were avoided while he was in the middle? I always did think his strutting peacock arrogance was to hide a lack of self-confidence. Mostly the loudest, most in-your-face people are those who are actually deeply shy in reality and hide it by pretending to be confident.}

5.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 18:29:20
Couldn't agree more Ed! Not to mention the fact that he was very much against VAR in the first place because he, and I'm quoting here, "had refereed for 19 years, why do I need help? ". Why put someone like that in charge of VAR in the first place?

I genuinely hope that his confession will launch an investigation into VAR, however I doubt that will be the case. Regardless though, to me this is no different than if a team/ individual had attempted matchfixing, and as such I personally think that the FA should consider legal action. Especially since these kinds of intentional decisions can genuinely impact the overall league finishes like I illustrated earlier. There is a relatively significant big financial difference between finishing 12th and 11th for example.

6.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 18:40:16
Ed001, you have made some interesting points with which I agree. Where do you think we should look to for VAR officials? Also if the communications were broadcast live between VAR and the ref like cricket and rugby, do you think that would help. You are dead right about loud and over confident people, in my career in public service, they were the ones who were generally incompetent and strangely often promoted.

{Ed001's Note - I think they should have trained up specialist VAR officials from the start. Maybe wannabe refs that fail the fitness requirements or ex-pro players. Better yet a mix of both to get the viewpoints from both sides. They would obviously require a different training from referees, so it makes no sense to use refs. You need a different skillset.

I defo agree with the communications should be heard. You only hide things when you have things in there you don't wish to be heard, which is worrying as there should be nothing in there that needs to be secret.}

7.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 19:45:28
My post is all ifs buts and maybes but if I remember correctly TT got sent off in that game for a weird handshake with Conte. They sending off may well not have happened without the decision.

Also, I think TT got suspended for two games and we lost both of those.

We will never know but sometimes these decisions have consequences!

8.) 25 Aug 2023
25 Aug 2023 21:56:29
Good point Jimbo and Ed001. In other leagues (the Australian A-League I think) they do have the comms audible on the TV broadcast at least.

The PGMOL statement on this beggars belief:

'We strongly refute any suggestions that VARs do not intervene, for whatever reason, when they have identified a clear and obvious error. '

Honestly, I can't even.

9.) 26 Aug 2023
26 Aug 2023 07:33:53
Sorry guys, all good points, but why can’t we just copy rugby? Works perfectly there and it’s a way harder game to ref.

10.) 26 Aug 2023
26 Aug 2023 07:49:20
To many appeals panels. haha!