Editor’s Column: The VAR audio is embarrassing but it’s national journalists who’ve really let themselves down

Breaking News News
Posted by

You will have all heard it by now.

Yesterday, after pressure from Liverpool and the Premier League, the PGMOL released the audios and visuals from the disallowed Luis Diaz offside goal – and you cannot turn on the radio or open social media without hearing somebody else’s opinion on it.

What a shit-show, eh? To think, this is where we’ve got to after 150 years of football evolution. This is the best system we’ve come up with.

It’s nonsensical. How does three men anxiously shouting at each other and ignoring what their colleagues have just said create an atmosphere where logical decisions are made? You can hear the tension in their voice. You can hear the reluctance in Darren England’s ‘I can’t do anything,’ when he absolutely could have done something and told referee Simon Hooper to stop the game.

As a Liverpool fan, it’s still frustrating me four days later and will likely continue to do so for years to come. After all, we don’t know what’s going to happen this season. If we’re in a title race, it could well be the defining moment. Just imagine.

When Pep Guardiola is championing Liverpool’s argument, we’re probably in the right.

“I understand completely how upset Liverpool must be in that case,” he said.

“Everyone knows they made a mistake and Liverpool suffered the big consequence of that. In this type of game, it is so important. But, no worries, the consequences will be on the players and the managers.”

What really makes me angry about this whole thing is not actually the incompetence of the officials on that day, though. I genuinely don’t think they did it on purpose and froze after making such a calamitous error. It’s not corruption. It’s people being very bad at their job. There’s a small part of me that feels sorry for them, given the backlash.

The thing that has riled me most is the reaction from the football universe to the fact Liverpool tried to do something about it. And this isn’t just from fans of rival clubs on the internet; it’s from respected, normally coherent journalists. It has baffled me.

Let’s take this chronologically, to show you where I’m at. The incident happened and literally everyone said it was horrendous and that Liverpool have been stitched up. Everyone said there is something categorically and functionally wrong with VAR and football’s use of it, if that can happen in a Premier League match.

Fine. We’re all on the same page. We all want something to change. It’s not a Liverpool issue – although we’re bore the brunt of it on this occasion – it’s a football issue.

Liverpool agreed and released the following statement: 

“We fully accept the pressures that match officials work under but these pressures are supposed to be alleviated, not exacerbated, by the existence and implementation of VAR.

“It is therefore unsatisfactory that sufficient time was not afforded to allow the correct decision to be made and that there was no subsequent intervention.

“That such failings have already been categorised as “significant human error” is also unacceptable. Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency.

“This is vital for the reliability of future decision-making as it applies to all clubs with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again.

“In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution.”

I’ve read this again and again and I honestly think it is completely reasonable. We need change. This statement applies pressure on the PGMOL to implement change.

Good, right? That’s what everyone wanted.

Apparently not. What followed was two to three days of utter, tribal rubbish from the same people who said the incident proved the system is inept.

There are literally millions of tweets that entirely miss the point, but here’s a select few.

Where in Liverpool’s statement does it suggest the club want a replay?

Nobody wants a replay. I don’t want a replay. It would tarnish any success we had this season if the game was replayed. So, these sarcastic straw-man arguments from Guardian journalists are completely unhelpful and simply poke at the embers of a ‘Liverpool versus everyone else’ fire. That’s not what this is.

Here’s BBC Sport’s Tim Vickery acquainting an administrative VAR error that failed to award the Liverpool goal against Spurs to a contentious handball from years back.

How can a journalist not know the difference between a subjective and an objective decision?

The Liverpool error is like the scoreboard in the game accidentally malfunctioned and said it was 2-1 rather than 2-2, and everyone just went, ‘Ah, that’s a mistake, but nothing we can do now! Look, it’s up there already!’ 

It’s not the same as a dodgy handball.

Then you started to get the predictably stupid stuff from former pros, who went with the, ‘Yeah but what about that time Liverpool got a bad decision in their favour?!’ nonsense.

Before Liverpool’s statement, the football world was furious at VAR for ruining their game, but as soon as Liverpool insinuated they wanted to do something about it, they changed their story.

Why? Simon Jordan on talkSPORT spoke of Liverpool’s victim culture and explained our reaction to the injustice as a result of this inherent trait. Yep. He said those words.

Can’t they see that this isn’t about Liverpool? If your club was hard done by last season and you didn’t say anything, you should have. You should have rallied around each other as a club and applied pressure. This invokes change.

FSG wouldn’t have have lowered ticket prices if Anfield hadn’t walked out back in 2015. The government would never have issued an apology for the failings at Hillsbrough had we not pushed for one. Liverpool fans are good at standing up for what they believe in and making things happen. Football would be better if everyone did it. We’re more alike that we’re different.

Whataboutery is the least helpful thing in football.

Like when people who supported the Qatar World Cup said, ‘Well, it was illegal to be gay in England in 1966, so…’ 

Yeah, and this was a terrible thing. So people spoke out, protested and implemented change for the better. Now it’s not illegal to be gay in this country. That’s good. Can’t they see this is how things get done? YOU SPEAK UP.

The situation reminds me of when people get angry at nurses and doctors on strike, and go, ‘Hang on! She already earns more than me!’

So maybe you’re not paid enough either. Do something about it. Support each other. Speak up against systems that keep you subservient, quiet and skint.

Liverpool’s noise made the PGMOL release the audio. This is a start. This has showed people how confusing awkward and crude the VAR system is.

Shall we maybe get it sorted then rather than farting about the topic and approaching everything with a can’t-do attitude?

And to Adam Crafton, I’d say, ‘Yes. Yes you can.’

11 Comments

  1. Incredible that people are still getting offended on behalf of self proclaimed superiors that you can’t point out somethings not working & can be improved going forward. Can’t quite work out if the backlash is fear of upsetting the relevant establishment or bigotry because of who it is pointing out things can be improved for the betterment of all, again, while the rest just complain to each other then leave it well alone because that’ll show them eh. If the same thing happened to your club last season, last game, do something so it improves, just accepting it happens clearly isn’t working is it?

  2. What about the lineman on field, why raise the flag, in such clear situation he had an excellent angle to see.
    What about the penalty on Gomez?
    What about stopping the game in a great opportunity for a goal, Selah stole the ball from Romero?
    What about the first yellow for Robertson and Jota?
    There were too many one-sided mistakes by VAR and the referees on the field

  3. Strange one this one! Liverpool only vehemently complains when they are at the wrong end of decisions.

    There were a period between 2018-2021 when VAR decisions always seemed to benefit them hence it being dubbed LIVARPOOL.

    No sympathy from me @ all.

    1. Only if you ignore statistics for those years. All analysis done shows this is confirmation bias from rival fans. We lost more points than gained from VAR decisions

    2. We dont need you sympathy and people knownthe truth VAR has had to rectify reallt bad decisions but nowbtheyvsimpky refusing to do so. Without VAR there would be so many bad calls against Liverpool not being rectified. We have been robbed of at least two Premier League titles. I do not recall other clubs having two apologies inside the first 8 games so please piss off.

    3. So we benefited by a decision being overturned (offside in each case) that was the correct decision. Hmmm

      If you knew the actual facts, we are also the team most penalised by VAR since it’s introduction, which makes a mockery of you go to agenda… let’s not have actual facts and evidence get in the way of your bias and prejudice.

      I am very happy to continue this whole conversation with hard facts, as opposed to you using childish taunts using Liverpool FC’s name. Personally you are coming across as the uneducated pundits who equally invent nonsense rather than fact.

    4. Only dubbed LiVARpool by idiots who didn’t actually look at the data but rather looked at a couple of decisions and decided that every decision went Liverpools way. Even if the accusation was true it would be the same argument that the system doesn’t work as well as it should so it needs improving. Liverpool have at least had the guts to say something.

    5. Are those the seasons where stats prove that Liverpool were the worst done to by VAR. only daft rival fans use the word LiVARpool. We got the least decision right by VAR during this period so look things up before spouting nonsense.

    6. You are sprouting an opinion that is not based on facts and in this WOKE culture it seems that the people that speak the truth risk offending people i.e. you, simply because you cannot stand it when others disagree with you. This is not about LFC, this is about incompetent officials ruining the game for EVERYONE and then so-called journalists who are supposed to be unbiased, having a go at LFC because they do not want to go against the establishment. For evil to triumph it just needs good men to do NOTHING, and that is what you want.

    7. get a brain & go check the actual facts – between var being brought in & 20/21 season , liverpool were one of the teams to benefit from var decisions the least in the prem , liverpool would have won another league if var hadnt been in , on the season they got 97 points

  4. I’m a LFC supporter but changes are required that benefit all clubs . Consistency is also a major problem.

Comments are closed