Were going to need a thread for all the Chelsea VAR chat this season. All of our 38 league games will have VAR. Along with the new rule changes it's going to be a season of VAR winners and VAR losers.

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A number of rule changes will be introduced in football next season which will affect all English clubs.

The International FA Board (IAFB) have introduced a number of changes for the 2019-20 season including clarifying handball regulations and changes to goal kicks, free kicks and goal celebrations.

All of the changes will come into force on 1 June 2019 and these are the main points.

Dropped ball

If play is stopped inside the penalty area, the ball will be dropped for the goalkeeper.

If play is stopped outside the penalty area, the ball will be dropped for one player of the team that last touched the ball at the point of the last touch.

In all cases, all the other players (of both teams) must be at least 4m (4.5yds) away. If the ball touches the referee (or another match official) and goes into the goal, team possession changes or a promising attack starts, a dropped ball is awarded.

Free kicks

When there is a ‘wall’ of three or more defenders, the attackers are not allowed within 1m (1yd) of the wall; an attacker less than 1m (1yd) from the ‘wall’ when the kick is taken will be penalised with an indirect free kick.

When the defending team takes a free kick in their own penalty area, the ball is in play once the kick is taken; it does not have to leave the penalty area before it can be played.

Goal celebrations

A yellow card for an ‘illegal’ celebration (e.g. removing the shirt) remains even if the goal is disallowed.

Goal kick

The ball is in play once the kick is taken; it can be played before leaving the penalty area.

Handball

Deliberate handball remains an offence.

The following ‘handball’ situations, even if accidental, will be a free kick:

• The ball goes into the goal after touching an attacking player’s hand/arm.
• A player gains control/possession of the ball after it has touches their hand/arm and then scores, or creates a goal scoring opportunity.
• The ball touches a player’s hand/arm which has made their body unnaturally bigger.
• The ball touches a player’s hand/arm when it is above their shoulder (unless the player has deliberately played the ball which then touches their hand/arm).

The following will not usually be a free kick, unless they are one of the above situations:

• The ball touches a player’s hand/arm directly from their own head/body/foot or the head/body/foot of another player who is close/near.
• The ball touches a player’s hand/arm which is close to their body and has not made their body unnaturally bigger.
• If a player is falling and the ball touches their hand/arm when it is between their body and the ground to support the body (but not extended to make the body bigger).
• If the goalkeeper attempts to ‘clear’ (release into play) a throw-in or deliberate kick from a teammate but the ‘clearance’ fails, the goalkeeper can then handle the ball.

Penalties

The team’s penalty taker can have (quick) treatment/assessment and then take the kick.

The goalkeeper must not be touching the goalposts/crossbar/nets; they must not be moving.

The goalkeeper must have at least part of one foot on/in line with the goal line when the kick is taken; cannot stand behind the line.

Substitutions

A player who is being substituted must leave the field by the nearest point on the touchline/goal line (unless the referee indicates the player can leave quickly/ immediately at the halfway line or a different point because of safety, injury etc).

 

VAR is going to be a nightmare this season. Especially for those in the stadium!

Looking at some of the farcical actions of some of the officials in the women's world cup where basically all lineswomen abdicated any responsibility for any decisions and the referees weren't much better i fear for the quality of our game goign forwards. With the ability that the cheats and divers in the mens game have of making the innocuous look like real fouls, reducing everything to unrealistic slow motion re-runs on tv may well kill the actual essence of the game. Once again the authorities appear to have taken an innovation and may well end up distorting the potential advantages of the system which could now turn the season into the worst kind of parody of football.  Can't wait!! Looking forward to the retarded Martin Tyler explaining the blatantly obvious to us over and over and over again.

3 hours ago, coco said:

Handball
Deliberate handball remains an offence.

The following ‘handball’ situations, even if accidental, will be a free kick:

The ball goes into the goal after touching an attacking player’s hand/arm.
A player gains control/possession of the ball after it has touches their hand/arm and then scores, or creates a goal scoring opportunity.
The ball touches a player’s hand/arm which has made their body unnaturally bigger.
The ball touches a player’s hand/arm when it is above their shoulder (unless the player has deliberately played the ball which then touches their hand/arm).
The following will not usually be a free kick, unless they are one of the above situations:

The ball touches a player’s hand/arm directly from their own head/body/foot or the head/body/foot of another player who is close/near.
The ball touches a player’s hand/arm which is close to their body and has not made their body unnaturally bigger.
If a player is falling and the ball touches their hand/arm when it is between their body and the ground to support the body (but not extended to make the body bigger).
If the goalkeeper attempts to ‘clear’ (release into play) a throw-in or deliberate kick from a teammate but the ‘clearance’ fails, the goalkeeper can then handle the ball.

at least they've cleared up handball, which has been entirely at the discretion of refs for far too long. before this, the "laws of the game" were just it's an offence to "handle the ball deliberately", and that has been completely ignored for years with unintentional handballs constantly being penalised (like the cl final, that was never a pen imo...even under these rules). 

1 hour ago, WhiteWall said:

Looking at some of the farcical actions of some of the officials in the women's world cup where basically all lineswomen abdicated any responsibility for any decisions and the referees weren't much better

what var will do is stop refs making decisions. that's why it was resisted for so long.

and when refs want to make sh*t decisions and stick by them, they will anyway. wasn't there an fa cup game we had with var under conte that was chock full of horrific decisions against us? norwich at home? i remember being furious about it, but i can't remember specifics tbh. 

VAR in my view hasn't actually improved anything. It's made it worse. Ajax v Madrid first leg is a great example. When you slow everything down and look at a billion camera angles you can always find a reason not to award a goal.

The idea of going back 2 or 3 minutes to find a penalty is also stupid. Particularly given how skillful the divers are these days. It should be there to stop the Henry goal against Ireland not to scrutinise every decision. 

That said. Handball changes are good and I don't mind the not having people standing in the wall changes either. 

And why do the VAR team, sitting in a studio, dress up as full kit w@nkers?

 

Only positive with VAR is it gets rid of the pointless extra officials on the goal line, who never see or indicate anything - and they are on the same side of the goal as the lino (left back side) - would be more effective on the other side, further away from the lino

Edited July 7, 20197 yr by Shug

VAR will f**k Liverpool up, no more dodgy salah falling over penalties hopefully. 

VAR is good, give it time. 

If everyone agreed to pretend VAR didn't exist and it was just the ref making every call, it wouldn't be controversial. 

 

Application of it in the Woman's World Cup shows that it's still painfully slow for a decision to be made. 

There were 7 minutes of added time in the England Vs USA semi-final because of the time taken to decide on an offside goal and penalty decision. 

They're micro-managing games and for me, it removes too much momentum from the matches. The "clear and obvious" has completely gone out the window and we're now reviewing offsides to the millimeter. 

I think a challenge system would be good for VAR - like what we see in cricket and tennis. Give each team 2 for the game, if you appeal a decision and get it wrong, you lose an appeal. If you get it right, you keep it. 

2 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

The "clear and obvious" has completely gone out the window and we're now reviewing offsides to the millimeter. 

Even if it is a matter of millimeters it's still going to technically be the right call.  The problem is that's not what it's designed for, but that's what it's going to come down to.  I'm not sure if you can account for human error by having something similar to the cricket where it can be "ref's call" if the offside decision is within a certain range.  It's a tough one to sort out, but I just hope it's not going to come down to literal millimeters, whether it's technically correct or not.

28 minutes ago, Michael said:

Even if it is a matter of millimeters it's still going to technically be the right call.  The problem is that's not what it's designed for, but that's what it's going to come down to.  I'm not sure if you can account for human error by having something similar to the cricket where it can be "ref's call" if the offside decision is within a certain range.  It's a tough one to sort out, but I just hope it's not going to come down to literal millimeters, whether it's technically correct or not.

I agree it's technically correct but to me it's slightly ridiculous ruling out a goal because an attackers toes were ever so slightly ahead of the last defender. 

I personally think that's over policing the games and sucks too much enjoyment and momentum out of the games. 

But that's what it looks like we're going to be dealing with this season. 2-3 minute breaks in almost every game heavily scrutinizing every goal, offside and tumble in the box. Dunno, reduces the game to something I don't overly like.  

A ref's view:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48903289

The Premier League will not be re-refereeing the game by VAR and will set a high bar for decisions, says referees' chief Mike Riley.

Video assistant referees will be used in the Premier League from the start of the new season, after clubs agreed to their introduction.

Riley and his team of referees have spent the past two years preparing and training all the match officials, including live trial matches, and have been encouraged by the progress they have made.

However, he stressed that VAR is still a work in progress. "It will take us two or three years to get this right," said Riley, who is general manager of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited.

He said there had been a "reaction" to some uses of VAR at the Women's World Cup in France, but across Europe in other competitions it had been implemented successfully.

"You look at the work in Italy, you look at the work in Spain, the Netherlands and in Germany latterly, and the more people get familiar with the process and work out how to harness it for the game I think the more comfortable people feel,"

The key area for implementation of VAR in the Premier League is the height of the threshold to change original decisions, and Riley believes working out when to intervene is the main challenge for the game as a whole, not just for referees.

"Where VAR has been implemented successfully in other competitions it's been a very high bar," he said.

"We don't want VAR to come in and try to re-referee the game. We actually want it to protect the referees from making serious errors, the ones everybody's goes: 'Well, actually, that's wrong.'

"If we keep to that really high bar there is more chance of keeping the flow of the game, the intensity of the game and people enjoying the spectacle of it rather than constantly referring to the video screen for changing decisions."

• Premier League referees meet to discuss how VAR should be used
• Rapinoe scores in World Cup final after VAR awards penalty

During their trials in the Premier League last season - up to week 33 - there were eight checks on average, with the average check lasting 29 seconds.

Riley stressed the key to successful implementation of the system is communication.

"The way we get it right is by everyone in the game talking: players, managers, referees, fans, broadcasters. We'll all have an opinion, it's all valid," he said.

"Between us, let's work out where we set that intervention. If we do that we'll create something that's really good for our game.

"At the forefront of our minds all the time are two things: minimum interference for maximum benefit, and to maintain where possible the flow, intensity and speed of the game, because that's what people want to watch in Premier League football."

• England's White sees goal ruled out by VAR in bronze medal play-off
• Scotland knocked out of World Cup amid VAR controversy

Other areas of debate from the Women's World Cup include the new laws surrounding handball, but Riley does not believe it is a problem in England.

"I actually think handball is in a really good place in this country, and that's the message that we get from all the clubs - from the managers and the players - when we go and talk to them.

"We have a philosophy that says we want handball to be something that has an impact on the game.

"We are not looking for the ball to be striking arms and we do accept, when we are looking for what is an unnatural position for the arm, that arms move. We don't expect players to defend with their arms behind their back, nor do we expect forwards to try and drill the ball to the hand to win a free-kick.

"The way we've actually implemented handball for the past two or three seasons is the way we are going to continue to do it in the future."

He said, as an example, that the winning penalty for the Netherlands against Japan at the Women's World Cup would not have been awarded in the Premier League.

"We consider that to be a natural position of the hand. You don't expect defenders to have their arms glued to their side, so if the hand is in a natural position then it's not an offence," he said.

It has its ups and downs IMO. We’ve had it in the states for a few seasons now and while it does slow the game down it will catch things that are frequently missed but at the same time those calls might go against you. Last season we, Atlanta United were on the verge of going down 0-3 then the last goal was under video review it was disallowed because of a handball in the other teams box that started the break. We were allowed a PK and ended up winning 4-3. 

But then again last week a defender slid in the box and his trailing hand was hit with the ball as the opposing team shot. He was given red and they got a pk out of it. 

I’m still on the fence but from I’ve seen in other leagues and situations it’s not a good thing yet

The use of technology as an aid to correct decision-making and application of the rules works very well in numerous sports. I don't see why football should be any different.

2 hours ago, seanlu13913 said:

It has its ups and downs IMO. We’ve had it in the states for a few seasons now and while it does slow the game down it will catch things that are frequently missed but at the same time those calls might go against you. Last season we, Atlanta United were on the verge of going down 0-3 then the last goal was under video review it was disallowed because of a handball in the other teams box that started the break. We were allowed a PK and ended up winning 4-3. 

But then again last week a defender slid in the box and his trailing hand was hit with the ball as the opposing team shot. He was given red and they got a pk out of it. 

I’m still on the fence but from I’ve seen in other leagues and situations it’s not a good thing yet

If his hand was just trailing and he didn’t intentionally try to stop the ball with his hand that’s a shocking decision. The penalty is bad enough but he should never be getting a straight red for trying to win the ball and having the ball strike the arm unintentionally.

7 hours ago, dkw said:

VAR will f**k Liverpool up, no more dodgy salah falling over penalties hopefully. 

Just wait, they will use the "it wasn't clear and obvious" excuse when it comes to Salah's diving.

43 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

If his hand was just trailing and he didn’t intentionally try to stop the ball with his hand that’s a shocking decision. The penalty is bad enough but he should never be getting a straight red for trying to win the ball and having the ball strike the arm unintentionally.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/07/03/video-review-leandro-gonzalez-pirez-commits-handball-box

PK maybe but red?

37 minutes ago, seanlu13913 said:

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/07/03/video-review-leandro-gonzalez-pirez-commits-handball-box

PK maybe but red?

Soft pen, but you could argue under the new rules it was an unnatural position (dubious but its one you would scream for it is was against you) never a red

With us having a new (rookie) manager and staff, i hope we don't take VAR lightly and get left behind with planning for the affect it will have on the game.

I can see Pep and city getting wet pants on the new goal kick rules... "it can be played before leaving the penalty area.?"

VAR will be frustrating as the work out all the kinks and wrinkles of the system. But in the long run, it will be good for the game. But I wouldn't put it past the premier league and FA to make an absolute mess of it

1 hour ago, coco said:

With us having a new (rookie) manager and staff, i hope we don't take VAR lightly and get left behind with planning for the affect it will have on the game.

I can see Pep and city getting wet pants on the new goal kick rules... "it can be played before leaving the penalty area.?"

I must admit, it was so strange watching the new penalty area rule being applied in the Gold Cup.  Caught myself yelling "you can't play it from there" at least 3 different times.

Four officials can’t referee a game? 

They need a video assistant?

I still prefer jumpers for goalposts. Wasn’t it?

Edited July 9, 20197 yr by zinc alloy

1 hour ago, zinc alloy said:

 

I still prefer jumpers for goalposts.

unless their were roadworks nearby