VAR fiasco . . .

First off, apologies for posting this in the rugby section rather than the football section but what I'm saying here is pertinent to any sport that uses technology to assist in making on-field decisions.

I am a life-long Tottenham Hotspur supporter and I have many friends and family who support Liverpool, including my son.

Yesterday Spurs beat Liverpool 2-1 to pick up three points and move to joint second on the Premiership table one point off the lead as the Ange Postocoglou era begins.

Winning the three points is great for me but it's made so much sweeter by all the indignant foot-stamping from all the Liverpool supporters bemoaning 2 red cards and a legitimate goal that was ruled offside by a bizarre VAR decision. Nothing sweetens a victory more than excuses from the losers . . . especially when the excuse is valid! 

It was a game filled with drama, suspense and no shortage of controversy but let me make 2 things very clear:

1. Liverpool showed incredible character to hold out for as long as they did with 9 men and they were desperately unlucky to concede such a dramatic and gut-wrenching (but beautifully clinical) own goal . . . right at the death . . . but they were dirty. Both red cards were justified. Jones could have broken Bissouma's ankle while Jota just couldn't cope with the skill and pace of Destiny Udogie and hacked him down instead . . . twice. The only incorrect card in the game was the yellow Udogie got for making yet another excellent fair tackle.

2. Tottenham under Ange Postocoglou are genuine title contenders. Can't tell you how many times in my lifetime I've said that and been proven wrong but I'm saying it again. To be a loyal Spurs supporter you have to be able to deal with tragedy. Things like firing Mauricio Pocchetino and hiring Jose Mourino to replace him . . . or this . . . or the one year when all the other big guns failed and we ended up losing the title to Leicester City of all teams . . . those are the kind of tragedies I'm talking about and now we have another one. Harry Kane leaving his beloved boyhood team (and Spurs losing arguably their greatest ever player . . . certainly of the modern era) . . . just as we finally get the right coach. Poch was a legend but Mourino was a disaster and what followed in the form of Nuno and then the dreadful Conte was even worse. Ange Postocoglou gets Tottenham. As a fan I see it. We may not win it this year but Ange is going to win us a long-dreamed of title. Harry is going to wish he stayed.

Now to the VAR (and the point of this post). You can read it in much more detail here but briefly, the VAR officials mistakenly thought the ref had awarded a goal when he hadn't. They told him to stick with his decision. What had in fact happened was that the linesman had incorrectly flagged for offside and the ref was waiting to hear if the linesman had been correct or not. The VAR team saw that it was clearly onside and said "yes, it's a goal" when what they they should have said was "no, the linesman is wrong, it's not offside. you may award the goal instead".

Utterly bizarre and a complete game-changer. Who knows what might have happened in that game if sanity had prevailed and the ref had just challenged VAR when he knew it  was wrong . . . but he's probably not allowed to do that.

It's not the technology letting us down it's human intervention. Let AI make these calls. Heck, let AI ref the game. Just ask it the right questions and give it the right data.

The single most practical and beneficial application of Artificial Intelligence is government of us as a human species . . . so officiating sporting events should be a no-brainer.

Not the best conclusions. I understand where you are coming from though. The result was a farce. 

Now poor Rooitwit wants to be governed by AI. Not surprising as the very servile Gimp needs a master. You can easily tell this by the way he parrots the views of the Globalist owned media. He doesn't have an original thought in his sparesely furnished cranium. 

Poor Rooitwit was alas born to be a slave. 

AI could ref games but should not be used to control people at the behest of tbe small self interested  Gl obalist Cabal hell bent on establishing a Global Government tyranny. 

Ou Rooitwit welcomes such a rule. He desires to be told exactly what to do 24/4. A more servile Gump  would be extremely hard to find. 

Bye the way this is a bit rich about AI reffing games coming as it does from  Rooitwit who has got extremely upset when folks have dared to question refs! His record speaks for itself. B ut his whole drawn out saga is all about refs making wrong call. Bwahahahahahaha. Classical Rooitwit shooting himself in both feet.

Actually Peeper’s point has always been that reffing rugby is extremely hard and there are no better options than the refs who have risen to the top. Now he raises the notion of an AI ref. Seems a bit of  a contradiction, but it makes sense….if  better decision making is available use it, because what we have can’t be improved significantly by current means.

Take cricket for example…the umpire makes a decision and if that decision is close, the video system supports him. But that means the odds are stacked by the original umpire call. Does that make any sense? Just leaving it to the cameras and software gives a better result.

Tennis at the Majors has adopted the video system to make the calls. They don’t enshrine the linesman call and only overrule the clearly wrong calls….the system makes the best decision.

Using AI in rugby would allow for an objective assessment of forward passing, whether the ball was over the line (with a chip in the ball) etc. But crucially to allow AI to make the calls….the rules would have to be clarified far more precisely than they are today.

Rugby may be the the most complex game to ref and so the game with the most improvement potential with AI officiating.

I watched the Spurs game and controversies aside it was a compelling game of soccer. For the first time since I’ve been a Spurs fan (1982 ) the team seems to have real self belief. Great a player as Harry Kane is, not having the great man around seems to have set the other players free. Looking forward to a great season.