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So no football for yet another International break. Following on from an article on the BBC this week about improving the game, i thought it might make for an interesting thread.

I rather suspect the BBC article was driven by the furore over the dippers disallowed goal, but it did spark the debate

Does football need more change? VAR was the last big change and arguably it hasn't been a huge success as there are increasing calls to remove it.

Should we simply scrap VAR and go back to how it was? Referees and linesman decisions are final. There will be errors of course but the game will flow better.

I'd personally like to amend the way time is officiated. I wouldn't mind the idea of two halves of 30 minutes actual play time. With the clock stopped when the ball is dead, (throw ins, corners, goal kicks, fouls). Players can then take as long as they like then and it won't matter. Relatively straightforward to implement and manage.

I'd also scrap offside completely. Most controversy is about offside and this, though seemingly extreme, would eliminate it. Also, play would be stretched more alleviating congestion in the middle third. And surely it would lead to more goal chances and goals; ie more excitement which is kind of the point of the game.

Any other thoughts good people?

I agree with a lot of what you've said but just want to put my own view on VAR and the offside rule.

VAR would be a lot better if it was used properly, as a support to the on-field referee instead of being some kind of ivory towered arbiter poking its nose in where it's not really needed. I really like the way VAR can flag something the referee may not have seen, though, and invite him to check replays of any contentious shithousery etc.

The offside rule, for me, should be put back to how it used to be where you had to be behind the defender when the ball was played or (dare I say it) even have clear daylight between them. All this measuring and endless replays is tedious and has ruined things for a lot of people who used to enjoy the game. Scrapping the offside rule completely would end up in chaos, with scores of 20-19 perhaps becoming commonplace. Not sure I would want that if I'm honest despite the obvious entertainment value.

I would love to see a clock counting down the time and have it halted whenever the referee stops play. I fail to see why that can't be implemented in the PL and it would solve some - though not all - of the problems we see week in, week out.

Just my tuppence-worth seeing as I don't post very often these days.

nottsblue wrote:I'd personally like to amend the way time is officiated. I wouldn't mind the idea of two halves of 30 minutes actual play time. With the clock stopped when the ball is dead, (throw ins, corners, goal kicks, fouls). Players can then take as long as they like then and it won't matter. Relatively straightforward to implement and manage.

I can see the merits to this, but it would never happen. Lower down the leagues, timekeepers would be too resource-intensive, as you'd need multiple timekeepers for when the ref calls things back, etc., while further up the pyramid it would play merry hell with (the timing of) advertising/TV schedules, so it wouldn't be in organizers' best interests.

No changes for me. Leave the game alone.

I know there would be a lot of unintended consequences to removing the offside rule, but in reality at the moment it really feels like the rule has grown arms and legs that weren't intended.

The original intent of the rule was about goal-hanging, and the tactical shifts if it removed would definitely add new pressure on defenders to counter the attacking team. For example, you could have a 'runner' as a team role...... the fittest centre forward on earth dragging round a defender and wearing them out - so it would definitely change the game, but in time the game would adapt.

But in reality, offside was never about whether some cunt's earlobe was offside and the rule as it is officiated today is getting really fucked up by introducing VAR to scrutinise, but then still applying vague/subjective rules around interfering with play, which makes the whole premise of VAR pointless. A 3 inch head start may be technically offside and our ability to call that today is impressive, but is that really the spirit of what offside was about - I don't think it is about showcasing the accuracy of technology which is what it's become.

I think I'd be tempted to agree about fucking offside off - the game today is different to the 1920s, players are fitter for a start, and the ability to develop data driven tactics would be very interesting to see.

Im_Spartacus wrote:I know there would be a lot of unintended consequences to removing the offside rule, but in reality at the moment it really feels like the rule has grown arms and legs that weren't intended.

The original intent of the rule was about goal-hanging, and the tactical shifts if it removed would definitely add new pressure on defenders to counter the attacking team. For example, you could have a 'runner' as a team role...... the fittest centre forward on earth dragging round a defender and wearing them out - so it would definitely change the game, but in time the game would adapt.

But in reality, offside was never about whether some cunt's earlobe was offside and the rule as it is officiated today is getting really fucked up by introducing VAR to scrutinise, but then still applying vague/subjective rules around interfering with play, which makes the whole premise of VAR pointless. A 3 inch head start may be technically offside and our ability to call that today is impressive, but is that really the spirit of what offside was about - I don't think it is about showcasing the accuracy of technology which is what it's become.

I think I'd be tempted to agree about fucking offside off - the game today is different to the 1920s, players are fitter for a start, and the ability to develop data driven tactics would be very interesting to see.

After last nights interpretations of the rules
Offside i'd say offside needs to be clear distance between feet of last defender and that of attacker

Handball - if it hits your hand/arm below middleof bicep, its handball , remove natural position or accidental interpretation it's too vague

There was a thread here a while back about Corruption.

That is what it is. Football can get fucked for all I care, has lost everything that made it great.

Indianablue wrote:

Im_Spartacus wrote:I know there would be a lot of unintended consequences to removing the offside rule, but in reality at the moment it really feels like the rule has grown arms and legs that weren't intended.

The original intent of the rule was about goal-hanging, and the tactical shifts if it removed would definitely add new pressure on defenders to counter the attacking team. For example, you could have a 'runner' as a team role...... the fittest centre forward on earth dragging round a defender and wearing them out - so it would definitely change the game, but in time the game would adapt.

But in reality, offside was never about whether some cunt's earlobe was offside and the rule as it is officiated today is getting really fucked up by introducing VAR to scrutinise, but then still applying vague/subjective rules around interfering with play, which makes the whole premise of VAR pointless. A 3 inch head start may be technically offside and our ability to call that today is impressive, but is that really the spirit of what offside was about - I don't think it is about showcasing the accuracy of technology which is what it's become.

I think I'd be tempted to agree about fucking offside off - the game today is different to the 1920s, players are fitter for a start, and the ability to develop data driven tactics would be very interesting to see.

After last nights interpretations of the rules
Offside i'd say offside needs to be clear distance between feet of last defender and that of attacker

Handball - if it hits your hand/arm below middleof bicep, its handball , remove natural position or accidental interpretation it's too vague

I think this weekend's happenings perfectly illustrate why VAR doesn't work in it's current iteration

We are seeing fundamental distortion of purpose. The offside law was a moral and tactical safeguard, designed to prevent goal-hanging and preserve the integrity of contest, not to measure anatomical pixels in pursuit of scientific certainty.

The original intent was simple: no player should gain an unfair positional advantage by waiting beyond the defensive line. The question it sought to answer was qualitative: has the attacker positioned themselves in a way that undermines the contest?

What was once a rule designed to achieve fairness has been re-engineered into a problem of precision engineering.

The sport now behaves as if a 3cm margin materially alters competitive equity. It does not. No meaningful advantage is created by the attacker’s boot being marginally ahead of the defender’s shoulder by the length of a thumbnail. Yet the modern framework treats that sliver as decisive. This is not progress. It is regulatory overreach by technology.

In any normal system of governance, proportionality matters. Regulation must be fit for purpose. The harm being addressed should justify the intensity of control applied. Football has failed this test. VAR, in its current incarnation, has become a solution over-optimised for a problem that is fundamentally human, fluid and contextual.

The law exists to prevent imbalance. But the present application seeks perfection where the game only requires reasonableness. It confuses fairness with mathematical purity.

What we are seeing is the classic failure of technocratic logic: when a system is given the capacity to measure something with microscopic accuracy, it develops an irrational obsession with doing so, even when the output no longer serves the original objective. The tool begins to dictate the rule, rather than the rule defining the tool’s role.

Offside should not be judged on whether a player is 2 or 3 centimetres beyond an invisible line in a freeze-frame selected by a human operator (which at weekend was the wrong frame anyway). A more rational interpretation would return to first principles:

* Did the player gain a meaningful positional advantage?
* Did their position distort the defensive structure?
* Did it materially influence the fairness of the contest?

Those questions cannot be answered by millimetres the guy would have scored whether he was 3cm onside or offside, the outcome would have been no different - precision has become detached from purpose

Thought I'd already posted but can't find it.

Every week the 5 shittest refs (as voted for by fans) get put into a Hunger Games/Battle Royale style competition where they have to kill each other off until one is left.

Less match rigging?

Im_Spartacus wrote:

Indianablue wrote:

Im_Spartacus wrote:I know there would be a lot of unintended consequences to removing the offside rule, but in reality at the moment it really feels like the rule has grown arms and legs that weren't intended.

The original intent of the rule was about goal-hanging, and the tactical shifts if it removed would definitely add new pressure on defenders to counter the attacking team. For example, you could have a 'runner' as a team role...... the fittest centre forward on earth dragging round a defender and wearing them out - so it would definitely change the game, but in time the game would adapt.

But in reality, offside was never about whether some cunt's earlobe was offside and the rule as it is officiated today is getting really fucked up by introducing VAR to scrutinise, but then still applying vague/subjective rules around interfering with play, which makes the whole premise of VAR pointless. A 3 inch head start may be technically offside and our ability to call that today is impressive, but is that really the spirit of what offside was about - I don't think it is about showcasing the accuracy of technology which is what it's become.

I think I'd be tempted to agree about fucking offside off - the game today is different to the 1920s, players are fitter for a start, and the ability to develop data driven tactics would be very interesting to see.

After last nights interpretations of the rules
Offside i'd say offside needs to be clear distance between feet of last defender and that of attacker

Handball - if it hits your hand/arm below middleof bicep, its handball , remove natural position or accidental interpretation it's too vague

I think this weekend's happenings perfectly illustrate why VAR doesn't work in it's current iteration

We are seeing fundamental distortion of purpose. The offside law was a moral and tactical safeguard, designed to prevent goal-hanging and preserve the integrity of contest, not to measure anatomical pixels in pursuit of scientific certainty.

The original intent was simple: no player should gain an unfair positional advantage by waiting beyond the defensive line. The question it sought to answer was qualitative: has the attacker positioned themselves in a way that undermines the contest?

What was once a rule designed to achieve fairness has been re-engineered into a problem of precision engineering.

The sport now behaves as if a 3cm margin materially alters competitive equity. It does not. No meaningful advantage is created by the attacker’s boot being marginally ahead of the defender’s shoulder by the length of a thumbnail. Yet the modern framework treats that sliver as decisive. This is not progress. It is regulatory overreach by technology.

In any normal system of governance, proportionality matters. Regulation must be fit for purpose. The harm being addressed should justify the intensity of control applied. Football has failed this test. VAR, in its current incarnation, has become a solution over-optimised for a problem that is fundamentally human, fluid and contextual.

The law exists to prevent imbalance. But the present application seeks perfection where the game only requires reasonableness. It confuses fairness with mathematical purity.

What we are seeing is the classic failure of technocratic logic: when a system is given the capacity to measure something with microscopic accuracy, it develops an irrational obsession with doing so, even when the output no longer serves the original objective. The tool begins to dictate the rule, rather than the rule defining the tool’s role.

Offside should not be judged on whether a player is 2 or 3 centimetres beyond an invisible line in a freeze-frame selected by a human operator (which at weekend was the wrong frame anyway). A more rational interpretation would return to first principles:

* Did the player gain a meaningful positional advantage?
* Did their position distort the defensive structure?
* Did it materially influence the fairness of the contest?

Those questions cannot be answered by millimetres the guy would have scored whether he was 3cm onside or offside, the outcome would have been no different - precision has become detached from purpose

In other words it was not offside?

Scatman wrote:

Im_Spartacus wrote:

Indianablue wrote:

Im_Spartacus wrote:I know there would be a lot of unintended consequences to removing the offside rule, but in reality at the moment it really feels like the rule has grown arms and legs that weren't intended.

The original intent of the rule was about goal-hanging, and the tactical shifts if it removed would definitely add new pressure on defenders to counter the attacking team. For example, you could have a 'runner' as a team role...... the fittest centre forward on earth dragging round a defender and wearing them out - so it would definitely change the game, but in time the game would adapt.

But in reality, offside was never about whether some cunt's earlobe was offside and the rule as it is officiated today is getting really fucked up by introducing VAR to scrutinise, but then still applying vague/subjective rules around interfering with play, which makes the whole premise of VAR pointless. A 3 inch head start may be technically offside and our ability to call that today is impressive, but is that really the spirit of what offside was about - I don't think it is about showcasing the accuracy of technology which is what it's become.

I think I'd be tempted to agree about fucking offside off - the game today is different to the 1920s, players are fitter for a start, and the ability to develop data driven tactics would be very interesting to see.

After last nights interpretations of the rules
Offside i'd say offside needs to be clear distance between feet of last defender and that of attacker

Handball - if it hits your hand/arm below middleof bicep, its handball , remove natural position or accidental interpretation it's too vague

I think this weekend's happenings perfectly illustrate why VAR doesn't work in it's current iteration

We are seeing fundamental distortion of purpose. The offside law was a moral and tactical safeguard, designed to prevent goal-hanging and preserve the integrity of contest, not to measure anatomical pixels in pursuit of scientific certainty.

The original intent was simple: no player should gain an unfair positional advantage by waiting beyond the defensive line. The question it sought to answer was qualitative: has the attacker positioned themselves in a way that undermines the contest?

What was once a rule designed to achieve fairness has been re-engineered into a problem of precision engineering.

The sport now behaves as if a 3cm margin materially alters competitive equity. It does not. No meaningful advantage is created by the attacker’s boot being marginally ahead of the defender’s shoulder by the length of a thumbnail. Yet the modern framework treats that sliver as decisive. This is not progress. It is regulatory overreach by technology.

In any normal system of governance, proportionality matters. Regulation must be fit for purpose. The harm being addressed should justify the intensity of control applied. Football has failed this test. VAR, in its current incarnation, has become a solution over-optimised for a problem that is fundamentally human, fluid and contextual.

The law exists to prevent imbalance. But the present application seeks perfection where the game only requires reasonableness. It confuses fairness with mathematical purity.

What we are seeing is the classic failure of technocratic logic: when a system is given the capacity to measure something with microscopic accuracy, it develops an irrational obsession with doing so, even when the output no longer serves the original objective. The tool begins to dictate the rule, rather than the rule defining the tool’s role.

Offside should not be judged on whether a player is 2 or 3 centimetres beyond an invisible line in a freeze-frame selected by a human operator (which at weekend was the wrong frame anyway). A more rational interpretation would return to first principles:

* Did the player gain a meaningful positional advantage?
* Did their position distort the defensive structure?
* Did it materially influence the fairness of the contest?

Those questions cannot be answered by millimetres the guy would have scored whether he was 3cm onside or offside, the outcome would have been no different - precision has become detached from purpose

In other words it was not offside?

Assuming they had chosen the correct frame and applied the rule correctly, it's clearly offside.

But I'm not arsed about whether it was on or offside, I'm more arsed that we're even talking about it. The games fucked because VAR fundamentally can't answer the question of whether the attacking player gained an unfair advantage by being 5cm further forwards - in which case we've lost sight of why the offside rule exists in the first place.

Simplify the scrutiny of offside when it comes to var. No drawing of lines, which as we have seen can be manipulated. If it's that close that the var can't look at a still the moment the ball is played and distinguish whether it's on or off without drawing lines then the benefit of the doubt goes with the attacker.

Thought i'd bump this in light of the Newcastle situation

Just seen the offside, and assuming the view was that he was 1cm offside, then I can live with it if it's black and white.

The issue as usual comes with how subjectivity is applied.......

The 'interfering with play' argument requires that the attacking team gained a sporting advantage. The natural assumption of that argument is that had Haaland not been offside, the defender would have had a different opportunity to get to the ball.

Yet the problem with this subjective interpretation of the rules, is that for the defender to get to the ball would have required Haaland to have been in a completely different position on the pitch in that phase of play - wheras to be 'onside' in fact he would only have required him to be placed 2cm differently.

If Haaland is stood 2cm back and onside, or 2cm forward and offside - the outcome (a goal) would have been identical, ergo there was no sporting advantage gained from his position.

The assumption that he gained a sporting advantage only stands up if we assume the alternative is that he wasn't stood anywhere near the defender, which is patently bullshit.

And this is the problem with subjective decisions vs black and white 'is he offside'

Now, the next question if we're making 'what if' statements about Haaland, surely would be whether the ball would have even gone in that direction had Semenyo not been rugby tackled - this is ignored, because the question VAR is required to answer is whether Haaland was offside. My interpretation of all this would be that the correct outcome would have actually been to disallow the goal and award a penalty.

It's a fucking shambles all round, and while I don't buy into any conspiracy against us, what I do buy is that the pressure put on referees here is fucking nonsense, VAR needs to go.

Im_Spartacus wrote:Thought i'd bump this in light of the Newcastle situation

Just seen the offside, and assuming the view was that he was 1cm offside, then I can live with it if it's black and white.

The issue as usual comes with how subjectivity is applied.......

The 'interfering with play' argument requires that the attacking team gained a sporting advantage. The natural assumption of that argument is that had Haaland not been offside, the defender would have had a different opportunity to get to the ball.

Yet the problem with this subjective interpretation of the rules, is that for the defender to get to the ball would have required Haaland to have been in a completely different position on the pitch in that phase of play - wheras to be 'onside' in fact he would only have required him to be placed 2cm differently.

If Haaland is stood 2cm back and onside, or 2cm forward and offside - the outcome (a goal) would have been identical, ergo there was no sporting advantage gained from his position.

The assumption that he gained a sporting advantage only stands up if we assume the alternative is that he wasn't stood anywhere near the defender, which is patently bullshit.

And this is the problem with subjective decisions vs black and white 'is he offside'

Now, the next question if we're making 'what if' statements about Haaland, surely would be whether the ball would have even gone in that direction had Semenyo not been rugby tackled - this is ignored, because the question VAR is required to answer is whether Haaland was offside. My interpretation of all this would be that the correct outcome would have actually been to disallow the goal and award a penalty.

It's a fucking shambles all round, and while I don't buy into any conspiracy against us, what I do buy is that the pressure put on referees here is fucking nonsense, VAR needs to go.

Really good post.
I would have loved the ref to have said: "After review, Manchester City number 9 was trying to get back onside but was being held in an offside position by Newcastle number 12. Goal awarded!"

Because that's actually what happened.
Well, sort of!!!!!!!

Feet and only feet is what should decide offside - not heads or elbows .
Would take a fraction of the time to decide offside or not - end of.

carl_feedthegoat wrote:Feet and only feet is what should decide offside - not heads or elbows .
Would take a fraction of the time to decide offside or not - end of.

Exactly. I also like the "clear daylight" rule as well.

The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Paris, gathering at Peter and Kate's home in a Chicago suburb on the night before their departure. Peter and Kate's youngest son, Kevin, is the subject of ridicule by his older siblings. Later, Kevin accidentally ruins the family dinner and their flight tickets to Paris after a scuffle with his older brother Buzz, resulting in him getting sent to the attic of the house as a punishment, where he berates Kate and wishes that his family would disappear. During the night, heavy winds damage the power lines, which causes a power outage and resets the alarm clocks, causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind.

Kevin wakes to find the house empty and, thinking that his wish has come true, is overjoyed with his newfound freedom. However, he soon becomes frightened by his next door neighbor, Old Man Marley, who is rumored to be a serial killer who murdered his own family, as well as the "Wet Bandits", Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars who have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood and have targeted the McCallisters' house. Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home, forcing them to put their plans on hold.

The attacker used to get the advantage, now it's the teams in red that get the advantage.

Mase wrote:

carl_feedthegoat wrote:Feet and only feet is what should decide offside - not heads or elbows .
Would take a fraction of the time to decide offside or not - end of.

Exactly. I also like the "clear daylight" rule as well.

The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Paris, gathering at Peter and Kate's home in a Chicago suburb on the night before their departure. Peter and Kate's youngest son, Kevin, is the subject of ridicule by his older siblings. Later, Kevin accidentally ruins the family dinner and their flight tickets to Paris after a scuffle with his older brother Buzz, resulting in him getting sent to the attic of the house as a punishment, where he berates Kate and wishes that his family would disappear. During the night, heavy winds damage the power lines, which causes a power outage and resets the alarm clocks, causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind.

Kevin wakes to find the house empty and, thinking that his wish has come true, is overjoyed with his newfound freedom. However, he soon becomes frightened by his next door neighbor, Old Man Marley, who is rumored to be a serial killer who murdered his own family, as well as the "Wet Bandits", Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars who have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood and have targeted the McCallisters' house. Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home, forcing them to put their plans on hold.

The attacker used to get the advantage, now it's the teams in red that get the advantage.

Fuck me Mase are we back on high brow salmon at breakfast

Two's Kompany wrote:

Im_Spartacus wrote:Thought i'd bump this in light of the Newcastle situation

Just seen the offside, and assuming the view was that he was 1cm offside, then I can live with it if it's black and white.

The issue as usual comes with how subjectivity is applied.......

The 'interfering with play' argument requires that the attacking team gained a sporting advantage. The natural assumption of that argument is that had Haaland not been offside, the defender would have had a different opportunity to get to the ball.

Yet the problem with this subjective interpretation of the rules, is that for the defender to get to the ball would have required Haaland to have been in a completely different position on the pitch in that phase of play - wheras to be 'onside' in fact he would only have required him to be placed 2cm differently.

If Haaland is stood 2cm back and onside, or 2cm forward and offside - the outcome (a goal) would have been identical, ergo there was no sporting advantage gained from his position.

The assumption that he gained a sporting advantage only stands up if we assume the alternative is that he wasn't stood anywhere near the defender, which is patently bullshit.

And this is the problem with subjective decisions vs black and white 'is he offside'

Now, the next question if we're making 'what if' statements about Haaland, surely would be whether the ball would have even gone in that direction had Semenyo not been rugby tackled - this is ignored, because the question VAR is required to answer is whether Haaland was offside. My interpretation of all this would be that the correct outcome would have actually been to disallow the goal and award a penalty.

It's a fucking shambles all round, and while I don't buy into any conspiracy against us, what I do buy is that the pressure put on referees here is fucking nonsense, VAR needs to go.

Really good post.
I would have loved the ref to have said: "After review, Manchester City number 9 was trying to get back onside but was being held in an offside position by Newcastle number 12. Goal awarded!"

Because that's actually what happened.
Well, sort of!!!!!!!

Agreed both of you

But the line of if he is 1cm offside then that’s ok as offside is offside has just been blown out of the water with Wirtzs goal recently where it turned out there is a secret 5CM leeway if the circumstances permit.

Funny how certain circumstances benefit certain clubs in their favour and some clubs get fucked over

I'm sure that 5cm bollox was made up on the spot to cover what was blatent cheating that was highlighted. Funny no one had heard of it before - and the ragtop media have brushed it under the carpet since...