General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

Well he's been stopped (for want of a better word) from taking charge of any Liverpool games for the rest of the season, so there's that.

Referees often get 'demoted' from PL duty for a week after a high profile error. He's been taken off a team for the whole season.

I haven't seen anything anywhere saying that decision was from the club having a say, but rather the PGMOL curtailing the absolutely guaranteed deluge of stories and unwanted distractions that would happen if he were assigned to another Liverpool match.

Interesting tidbit from the end of that article though, that there is a precedent of changing a goal ruling after play has restarted - happened at the last world cup, which i'd totally forgotten;

"Nevertheless there is a precedent - a France goal was disallowed retrospectively at the World Cup finals in Qatar, switched from goal to ‘no goal’ for offside even after opponents Tunisia had kicked off again.

The goal was an equaliser from Antoine Griezmann in the 98th minute of the final group game that ultimately ended 1-0 to Tunisia. The referee stopped the game on the advice of the Var to reverse the decision. Fifa’s disciplinary committee subsequently dismissed a complaint by the French Football Federation."

What I can't understand is that once they were aware of the mistake and the ref on the field was aware of the mistake why they couldn't just award the goal and re-start the match again?

Surely that would have nipped a good deal of the aggro in the bud?

What was the particular reason why that was never considered as an option.

So you can't retrospectively go back once the check has completed and play has restarted.

But you can retrospectively go back if the check is ongoing while play is continuing, even if a greater period of time in the game has passed?

Because there have been incidents in games where play will continue for longer than it did the period of the VAR check on the Diaz goal - but it will be eventually restarted again if something is awarded.

If those are the rules, well then I guess they're the rules, but, it seems crazy to me that when a decision is as clearly wrong as it was in that instance - and the error had been recognised -that there's no option for a restart.

It’s different (and terrible) but not worse. I think VAR incorrectly making a decision and nobody correcting them is at least the same if not worse. (Hypothetically speaking 😂😂)

It's already been mentioned a few times that during the World Cup a goal given to France against Tunisia was rescinded upon review even after the game had restarted. France appealed, and were rejected. So the precedent is there that you can indeed restart play and quickly halt the game to fix the error.

wow, I had never heard of that but read the analysis here https://www.football365.com/news/france-demand-fifa-overturn-defeat-tunisia-referee-broke-rules

to be fair the decision taken was wrong not the rule.

Its a fcucking sh1t show to be honest.

Yeah, so France's appeal being rejected, upholding the refs decision to pull it back for the correct result, sets the precedent that this can be done, or is at least a viable possibility. In this instance the VAR didn't even have the common sense to notify the ref of the error though.

Agh Jurgen, look what you've started on boards (well restarted, thread was dying).

He can be too honest sometimes, it's why I love him.

There's so much click bait headlines from managers interviews these past few years. You see a big claim in a headline, then read the article and go wtf? How did they get that headline out of a whole press conference.

Well, they broke the core fundamental rule of football officiating (correctly keeping score). The only way to rectify that massive massive breach and chief purpose of their existence, was to break a much smaller rule. Common sense dictates that's the obvious thing to do, just as it dictated it was the right thing to do in the France Tunisia game - which of course was officially vindicated upon investigation by FIFA.

I think everyone can probably all agree that had they stopped it after 7 seconds and fixed the error, that the outcome would have been better.

The official position of the PGMOL is that they did not tell the ref at any point, that the ref discovered himself at half time.

And no, I don't think the France Tunisia thing can really be used for restitution - there can't be any restitution - it just shows further that the lad on VAR moronically chanting "i can't do anything" over and over maybe could've thought outside the box a little bit, or at very least informed his boss on the field as the VAR had done in that game.

(I'd also have kinda expected that someone within this specific industry and role would've known all about the France situation, seeing as it was only a few months ago, and thought about it as a solution, but i'm probably giving these lads too much credit there)

The restitution is a change to the wording of VAR to be more clear and concise. As has been said for a long time, it's needed and this should be the only time something like this happens. One team loses out and that's it.

Yeah he should be gone from all games really.

To play devil's advocate here, maybe Liverpool pushed to have the VAR official, England, be removed from the league overall as it's the biggest error one can make while a VAR official and he is the 'PGMOL poster-boy' according to that Telegraph report. It's possible that as a reply to that, the PGMOL said we can't do that so we'll just take him off your games instead. Which is messy.

Lee Mason was sacked as a VAR official after his error in that Brentford -Arsenal game that many keep mentioning. Maybe Arsenal pushed for that last season? I don't know if they did but Mason was sacked because of that incident.

I haven't read anything that would make me believe that FIFA vindicated the referee for going against the rules in the France Tunisia game.

All we know is that they rejected the appeal.

We also know that the appeal was frivolous in nature given France finished top of their group regardless.

Most likely FIFA said let's move on nothing to see here rather than any vindication of the referee for going against the laws of the game.

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story?id=37634594&_slug_=fifa-dismisses-frances-protest-antoine-griezmanns-disallowed-goal-vs-tunisia

It has taken FIFA's disciplinary committee five days to issue a response, with a short statement dismissing the appeal.

It read: "The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has dismissed the protest submitted by the French Football Association in relation to the Tunisia v. France FIFA World Cup match played on Nov. 30."

No further information was offered.

My point is that France didn't lose out and its logical that the appeal was dismissed solely for that reason. There was no reason or benefit to uphold the appeal. You're claiming the referee was vindicated but have offered nothing to back that up.

I understand your train of thought but I don’t know what your conclusion is. The rule wasn’t changed and what happened in the French match did not happen in the Spurs match.

Until the rule is changed (which may happen) that one incident is not relevant. Well apart from a playbook that VAR could have attempted to use at the time. But he froze.

Care to show how its irrelevant?

To win an appeal you'd have to show a decision negatively affects you. The result of the France Tunisia game had no impact on how the group finished.

Do you really think FIFA were going to overturn a result at a world cup five days after the event illiciting negative headlines for an outcome that wouldn't have benefited anyone? It may have been different if Denmark/Australia had needed Tunisia to lose to go through.

The only thing England did right on Saturday was to not try to get the referee to stop the game.

So can point to where these rules are written down? How to win an appeal etc

Just as I thought. Nothing concrete to back up your opinion.

You're taking 2+2 and getting 5 from the France Tunisia game because it suits you that it could have been a precedent for the Liverpool goal standing the other night despite it being against all established laws of the game. That's the only fantasy here.

We don't know on what grounds the appeal was dismissed. That's my whole point. All we know from FIFA is the one line sentence I quoted earlier.

"The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has dismissed the protest submitted by the French Football Association in relation to the Tunisia v. France FIFA World Cup match played on Nov. 30"

In other words you are just surmising.

Anyway per your last line we'll agree to disagree

No idea - it's quite the mixed messaging. On the one hand dismissing the French appeal, and not punishing or sanctioning the ref who made the decision, or declaring that what happened was wrong, are all clear indications that they were happy enough with the refs ad hoc solution. But on the other hand not going the extra step towards changing the law suggests they had reservations. Could perhaps be a bit of what we have in actual law all the time, like Roe V Wade being protected by precedent for decades, without ever being protected by law (which eventually became its undoing). Maybe by not condemning the action, but not changing the law, they stop the possibility of frivolous appeals to go back plaguing matches, while maintaining the option of just letting it go if the need is clear, as they did with the Tunisia game. Who knows.

I doubt they'll ever come out and tell us, so we can only guess. Hopefully they take that extra step now, or find some other solution so the path and outcome can be more certain for everyone involved.