More about whiny WOL:
Wolves lodged a motion for consideration at the end-of-season AGM stating that “the price we are paying for a small increase in accuracy is at odds with the spirit of our game, and as a result we should remove it from the 2024/25 season onwards.”
Same article:
Although there were 31 VAR errors logged by the Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel last season, 107 refereeing mistakes were corrected. The feeling is that rolling back to allow those errors to return to the game would, at this point, not be acceptable.
Earlier this season Tony Scholes, the league’s chief football officer, said that there were “too many checks” that are “taking too long,” but that the Premier League was fully committed to VAR.
Agreed that they are taking too long. Again, one fix is to have the on-field referee walk toward the monitor, and not wait for the VAR to recommend the referee to go to the monitor.
With 38 VAR errors in 2022-23, the Premier League will also point to a 21% drop in mistakes year-on-year to show things are getting better, despite some high profile incidents. Yet the problem is there are many more situations outside of those identified by the KMI Panel which managers and fans will feel are wrong.
What? managers and fans are complaining about calls/non-calls? And this has only started since VAR came into existence??
Clubs will, however, approve referees announcing the explanation for a VAR overturn to the crowd. This will largely only apply to a referee visiting the pitchside monitor to overturn a subjective decision, which happened 66 times last season.
Ugh. They will be speaking the King’s English, which foreign-speaking fans, like Americans, won’t understand. Time will actually be wasted doing this. The hand signals in the IFAB LOTG are perfectly cromulent.
The AGM comes less than two months after the 20 Premier League clubs voted to introduce semiautomated offside technology (SAOT) next season, which involves a contract with a new offside technology supplier, Second Spectrum. That will be delayed until after one of the autumn international breaks as further testing is required to ensure the system is robust.
It is (should be, IMO) called “Automated Offside Position Technology.” Offside can only be determined (for now) by a referee determining that the offside position player has gotten involved in play.
It is hoped that SAOT will, on average, make offside decisions 31 seconds quicker by removing the human aspect of the VAR drawing lines onto the players. But this technology isn’t going to make offside calls instant, there is likely to be an increased number of marginal decisions as, unlikely the current Hawk-Eye software, SAOT doesn’t have a built-in tolerance level, and some situations – where several players are involved in close proximity – the VAR may have to resort to using the old Hawk-Eye system.
Downside is that there will be more playing time wasted due to the “late flag” philosophy. Hoping that the Referee or AR is notified immediately of (or within a few seconds) who was in an offside position at the time the ball was played by a teammate.
