The Home of European Football

                                   European Champions Cup/Champions League                                  UEFA Cup/Europa League                                                      Cup Winners Cup 

HEADLINES

PGMOL - TICK, TICK.

December 18  2023

On December 14th the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) announced the inevitable and truly underwhelming news that the Premier League match between Fulham and Burnley, on Saturday 23rd December, will be refereed by a woman for the first time ever. I'm only surprised that it has taken them this long to tick that box. Oh and by the way, there will also be the first black referee to officiate at the top level in English football for 15 years. Tick!

In what has been a truly disastrous season so far for Howard Webb's company, the PGMOL have presided over calamitous decision, after calamitous decision, and have even seen fit to take to the airwaves on Sky Sports with their 'Match Officials Mic'd Up' programme to gaslight football supporters into believing that they are not only doing a great job but that they will only get better at it. The programme's choice of presenter, Michael Owen, isn't lost on football fans who can clearly see that this is nothing more than a propaganda exercise. There have been far too many individual mistakes by the PGMOL to list here but just when we thought that they and VAR couldn't make the game any worse, they managed to concoct the Luis Diaz disallowed goal at Tottenham to take things to a whole new level. Floundering in a sea of controversy and sheer incompetence, entirely of their own making, Webb and the PGMOL needed something 'positive' to show to the public, something that wasn't just another hollow apology to another wronged Premier League club due to their inept match officiating. So what better news could there be than to announce that a woman will be plunged into the top flight men's division in the world's most watched league, albeit at the least attractive and relevant match of the weekend, although Nottingham Forest vs Bournemouth must have ran it pretty close.

Rebecca Welsh became the first woman to be appointed to officiate at an English Football League match in March 2021 when she took charge of a game between Harrogate and Port Vale, in December of the same year she was assigned the F.A. Cup third round match between Birmingham City and Plymouth Argyle. In the past year she has officiated at just 23 men's matches, 6 in the Championship, 11 in League One, 5 in League Two and 1 in the F.A. Cup. That's not a great deal of experience at the near elite level. 

Completely at random I looked at the stats for some male referees who have spent the last year officiating primarily in the English Championship. First, there was 35 year old Matt Donohue. In the past twelve months he has officiated at 36 matches in total, 29 Championship games, 2 in League One, 3 in the F.A. Cup and 1 League Cup match. Then, John Busby who has reffed 28 Championship matches in the last year, while Andy Davies, who is the only referee in the Football League who used to play professional football, has officiated at 14 Championship matches in the last year as well as 3 in League one and 5 in League Two. 

If you scrutinise some of the supporter's forums for feedback on each of these officials you will find that all of them have been pelted at some point for their decisions, including Welsh who received particular ire from Sheffield Wednesday fans for her handling of their away matches at Birmingham City and Oxford United. Given that she has only 6 Championship matches under her belt and all of the male officials that I checked have at least double, none of these men were seen fit by the PGMOL to make the jump to the big leagues but Welsh was. I wonder why?

In the same announcement the PGMOL decided to reveal that Sam Allison would be the first black official to take charge of a Premier League match in 15 years, amazingly Allison has only officiated at 8 Championship games to date over the past one and a half seasons yet is now deemed good enough for the elite level. I would question why the PGMOL had to point out that Allison was black, it is quite obvious that he is black when you see him, but why make that specific point if it wasn't just a PR exercise? Unsurprisingly when you review Allison's performances you also find some fans willing to slate him as having put in 'one of the worst refereeing performances I've ever seen' but then find me a ref who hasn't.

The issue is now that Welsh and Allison aren't just another two Premier League standard referees, they are the first woman referee and the first black male  referee in the Premier League, no pressure there then.

Back in 2019 when Liverpool and Chelsea contested the UEFA Super Cup in Istanbul, Stephanie Frappart became the first woman to ever referee a UEFA men's final. At the time that decision was deemed controversial and many suspected that UEFA were making the decision purely based on the fact that Frappart was a woman and it was not due to her officiating skills. The game was relatively uneventful from a officiating perspective until the 11th minute of extra time when, trailing 2-1, Chelsea's Tammy Abraham dived when contesting a ball with Liverpool keeper Adrian. Frappart immediately pointed to the spot. It was quite clear from the standard television pictures that there was no contact and therefore no penalty should have been awarded. The decision of course went to the VAR, who was Frappart's French male compatriot Clement Turpin. The television pictures being broadcast kept showing the same image of the apparent contact between the two players and subsequently Turpin agreed that the on field decision was indeed correct, the spot kick was awarded and Jorginho scored to tie up the match at two goals apiece.

After the game a new camera angle of the penalty incident, from behind the Liverpool goal, appeared on BT Sport which confirmed that the penalty decision was of course incorrect and that Abraham had dived. Strange that this angle wasn't shown at the time or during the remainder of the match by the official broadcaster. If you were being 'conspiratorial' you might surmise that UEFA didn't want their golden child to be shown up for having made a huge blunder in her penalty award decision, and by showing the replay from behind the goal it would have been very difficult to defend both her and the VAR's decision to award the spot kick. Better to only show the one, not completely clear, angle and avoid all the hullaballoo that might follow. It didn't matter that the credibility of the match and the competition was being tarnished, just as long as UEFA's first woman referee at a men's final wasn't in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

And that is the crux of the matter. What happens when Welsh or Allison, for that matter, make a real boo boo during a match, will the all male, all white VAR team tell them to go and look at the pitch side monitor, will they dare highlight the fact that the on field official has made a mistake and if they do, how many times will it take before fans start asking why they were fast tracked into the Premier League in the first place? By trying to reduce the already deafening noise of discontent surrounding them, the PGMOL have cranked up the volume to yet another level. 

 'IN A PANIC, THEY TRY TO PULL THE PLUG....'

November 30 2023

In the Hollywood blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the movie's heroine, Sarah Connor tells the audience that at 2:14 a.m. Eastern Time, August 29th Skynet became self aware and the result was the destruction of mankind, well almost that is! It seems like football is only a matter of time away from being destroyed by its own A.I. nightmare, VAR. Every weekend and midweek set of fixtures throw up yet more VAR & PGMOL madness and there appears to be no end to it, and no one is prepared to try and stop it, or so it would seem. In the movie the only man who could stop Skynet from eliminating mankind was Sarah's son John Connor, in the Premier League that salvation role was being played by Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp but a general apathy amongst the Premier League clubs and the myopic culture of rival fans seems to have put paid to any final chance that the game had to stand up to its oppressor. 

The most recent debacles took place within just 24 hours of each other, but by the time you have read this, in fact by the time that I have probably finished writing about it, there will no doubt have been another equally baffling incident, which will have changed the course of a game and probably the competition it was being played in. First, we saw two very dubious penalties awarded to Fulham in their Monday evening Premier League match at Craven Cottage against Wolves. Fulham hadn't had a single spot kick awarded to them in their previous thirteen games, yet here they got two in just over an hour. The first spot kick was actually awarded by the on field referee Michael Salisbury, but there was a theatrical dive from Fulham's Cairney and very little contact made by the Wolves defender. But the VAR saw nothing 'clear and obvious' in the referee's awarding of the spot kick to warrant questioning his original on field decision. The second penalty, awarded in added time, was not originally given by Salisbury, it took the VAR, who this time adjudged that there was indeed a sufficient 'clear and obvious' error, triggering Stockley Park to tell the match official to go and look at the incident again, from the pitch side monitor. Here, under the gaze of the spectators in the stadium and the millions watching around the world he viewed the incident in numerous replays from numerous angles at varying speeds, most of them super slow. It was then somewhat unsurprising that he overturned his original decision and awarded a spot kick to the home side, which they duly dispatched and Fulham took all three points.

The following evening the setting was completely different, a raucous Parc de Princes in Paris was vociferously screaming for every decision as the home side struggled to create a breakthrough against Newcastle United who were leading 1-0 as their crucial Champions League Group F match ran into its 94th minute. PSG's Dembele's attempted cross struck Newcastle's Liveramento, who was approximately three feet away, in the chest before the ball ricocheted onto his elbow. Dembele appealed for a penalty, as did the rest of his teammates, the Paris crowd and PSG manager did the same but UEFA's top official, who was on the pitch, ignored all the protestations. 

When the ball finally went dead, referee Szymon Marcinaic was surrounded once more by PSG players asking for a VAR check. The Pole who refereed last season's Champions League final and the FIFA 2022 World Cup Final was then asked, or should that be was then told, by VAR to go and look at the incident. After watching the 'handball' incident from many different angles when the images were slowed down and stopped to a single frame, he turned from the monitor, made the VAR signal and pointed to the spot. PSG's Killian M'Bappe fired home the spot kick and the match was drawn, completely changing the dynamic of the qualifying group and possibly, ultimately, the destiny of the competition as a whole.

Following the match virtually everyone, except maybe the most one eyed of PSG fans, were united in their belief that the decision was wrong. It was never handball and should never have been a penalty kick. The new directive on handball, which has been changed on so many recent occasions precisely to fit the VAR narrative, states that it is an offence if a player:

touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiably by, the player's body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised.       

Liveramento's hand/arm was completely in keeping with a natural position, so much so that after the ball deflected off his chest it hit him on the elbow as his arms were performing a running motion. Yet VAR and Marcinaic somehow managed to collude to determine that it was in fact an unnatural position and not accidental. 

Up to that point Marcinaic was playing up to his reputation as UEFA's finest referee, he had had an excellent match, that was until the 94th minute. Some will point the finger of suspicion at both UEFA and the match official and accuse them of caving into pressure from a club that is owned by a Qatari Emir backed sports company, the same country that was inexplicably awarded the 2022 World Cup Finals. Whatever the truth, the match official wasn't going to award the spot kick until the VAR told him to look at it again. Some have commented that the referee should have had the conviction of character to stand by his original decision, but there can be no doubt that the influence being asserted by VAR, who are seven match officials watching the game on a multitude of cameras with numerous additional angles compared to the on-pitch referee, who only gets once chance to see the incident in real time, is difficult to ignore. Wouldn't you question your judgement if seven work colleagues had studied your work and suggested that you may have made a wrong call? 

There is an glaring contradiction from the footballing bodies when they state that they do not want VAR to re-referee the game. If a situation where VAR stops  the on field play to 'correct' a match official 's decision is not re-referring the game, then I don't know what is? Simply, you cannot have it both ways, the very fact that VAR has been implemented to specifically make hindsight judgement calls is the very essence of re-refereeing the game. But, with everything, if a manufactured mantra is repeated enough times it is no longer questioned, you can add to that the infamous new-speak of 'clear and obvious' when referring to an error. What is clear and obvious to me may not be clear and obvious to you, so it is really just another person's opinion, nothing to do with clarity or distinctiveness. Yet still the match official and the various VAR and assistant VAR's keep getting their decisions so very wrong.

After both games, unsurprisingly the manager's on the receiving end of the injustices, Wolves' Gary O'Neil and Newcastle's Eddie Howe, were both critical of the decisions, O'Neil went as far as to say that he has been 'finally turned off by VAR'. Well I for one have absolutely no sympathy for him or for Howe. Where were both managers when VAR inexcusably managed to disallow Luis Diaz's goal for Liverpool against Tottenham? When Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool attempted to apply what pressure that they could on the PGMOL neither manager raised a whisper, it wasn't their problem then, but it is now. The Diaz debacle could have been a turning point for VAR, the clubs, the players and managers and the supporters for that matter, could have rid the game of VAR at that point. A simple declaration of no confidence in both the PGMOL apologists and VAR itself by the clubs would have brought matters to a head. Clubs refusing the complete their fixtures until VAR was removed would have originally led to a stalemate but the Premier League would have caved in pretty quickly with the prospect of a football blackout at the highest level. The Premier League, so desperate to cling onto its premier status, especially with the pressure currently being exerted onto it by the Saudi Pro League, would have had no choice but to listen to its most prized assets. But in the dog eat dog world of football there was never any chance of a united front against this technology that has sucked practically all the enjoyment out of the game. 

It is only a matter of time before the semi-automated offside, currently in play at FIFA tournaments and UEFA club competitions, is made fully automated, then how long before there is even a need for match officials at all, certainly not to make any on-field decisions in relation to play. Their only purpose would be to keep the players in line, before and after VAR has decided their fate. 

We are allowing football to be led by the nose into an abyss where it will become completely unrecognisable from the game that most of us grew up to love. Money and greed, as usual, are the factors keeping us on this road to oblivion, next we are being promised sin-bins, another aberration from our beautiful game. For some reason football always looks to Rugby Union for guidance as to how it should monitor and ultimately manage the game. 

The 2019 Rugby World Cup finals in Japan attracted combined world wide viewing figures of some 857 million people, compare that to the 2022 footballing equivalent which boasted nearly double that amount with 1.5 billion viewers. Sponsorship for the Rugby 2023 World Cup finals in France was an estimated £113M, FIFA raked in £1,338M for its 2022 competition in Qatar. There is no comparison, yet football's governing bodies are continuously leading us down the wrong path, time and time again. It has to stop and the only people who can make it stop are the clubs, the players, the managers and us, the supporters. It is time to act before it is finally too late.

When I first warned about VAR killing the game, back in 2017, people like Gary Lineker and the Daily Mail's Oliver Holt's and Matt Lawton were falling over themselves for it to be fully implemented into the game. There were in fact very few opposing voices on the subject, the fans of course were never consulted, it didn't matter that players at the grassroots level, that everyone is always telling us are sooooo important, are now playing a version of the game which is unrecognisable to the one played by their multi-millionaire counterparts. So much for the people's game. Not to mention the fact that the English Premier League play to a different set of laws then do the Championship and League One & Two. A two-tier version of the game is now fully implemented, one with technology and one without. Goal line technology is another version of the emperor's new clothes. If a ball looks like it has crossed the line it doesn't matter if it has as long as the GLT says it didn't. Not only do we fully believe that GLT is required but we also believe that it is infallible. Players appeal for a goal and the referee points to his wrist, that is the oracle, there is no argument, the technology simply can't be wrong. Try telling that to Bournemouth who were relegated in 2020 and Aston Villa spared from the drop due to GLT completely missing a clear Sheffield United goal in their clash at Villa Park when football resumed after the government lockdown. Villa's point in the 0-0 draw ultimately kept them in the Premier League by a single point. Hawkeye, claimed that all seven cameras were obscured by players, so the 'goal' was missed despite Villa keeper Orjan Nyland carrying the ball into his goal and actually falling into the side netting whilst holding it. Hawkeye were quick to tell us that this was the first GLT failure in 9,000 matches. How do we know it was? If it had failed before do you really think that they would have told us? 

In January 2019 Liverpool's unbeaten start to the season was ended in controversy at the Etihad when they had a goal ruled out by GLT which apparently was 11mm from being a goal. And how do we know that GLT was correct, because they showed us a computer generated picture to prove it. Not a real picture, but one with a computer simulated goal line and a computer simulated ball. Even VAR uses real pictures. Can you imagine the uproar if VAR switched to computer graphics every time a decision was being scrutinised? But why worry, GLT only gets it wrong every 9,000 matches. 

In September 2022 Hawkeye apologised to Huddersfield Town when it failed to award another clear goal in their match against Blackpool, which denied the home side a point. The official reason this time was 'due to multiple factors'. The PGMOL hade their own statement which said the match officials were 'unsighted due to obstruction by players and therefore unable to award a goal'. But if Hawkeye had buzzed for a goal despite the match officials being 'unsighted' then a goal would have been awarded! But don't worry GLT only gets it wrong every 9,000 matches.

One thing is for sure, VAR & GLT is here to stay, there is simply too much money tied up in contrats for it to be scrapped now. It does make me wonder just how bad things would have to get before both technologies would be even reviewed. let alone suspended.

It got me thinking about what the future looks like for VAR in football. I think that the following timeline is not too left field. Remember where you heard it first!

A VAR time line..................

Season 2024-25 - The Premier League adopts the VAR semi-automated offside technology. VAR remit expanded to include corners and throw-ins as well as 2nd bookings. Sin bins trial introduced for lower leagues.

Season 2025-26 - VAR introduced for throw ins and any holding offences inside the penalty area at set plays. Following their 'successful trial in the lower leagues, Sin bins are adopted into the Premier League.

Season 2026-27 -  Fully automated VAR AI technology for offside is introduced. Referee assistants will now assist the match official in matters of player discipline only. Trials to reduce the duration of the game by introducing 'stop clocks' for when the ball is 'dead', proposals to reduce the match time to 60 minutes would 'fit in much better with tv schedules'.  

Season 2027-28 - Referee assistants phased out. A trial of two referees is undertaken, one in each half of the pitch, to help the on field officials to manage the amount of VAR AI information being relayed to them during the match. Human VAR removed completely, VAR AI will now assist in all on field matters. Matches are reduced to 60 minutes duration. Match clock is stopped when the ball is dead.

Season 2028-29 - Players will wear full body sensors which will determine if there is sufficient contact between players to result in a foul. VAR AI will determine whether sufficient force has been applied to impair a player's progress. Referees will wear VR head sets which will allow them to view the whole pitch in 360 degrees from ground level as well as aerial views of the playing surface, to help them interpret VAR AI information quicker. VAR AI monitors all players' positions at all times on the pitch.

Season 2029-30 - Referees are removed from the field of play as VAR AI now has complete visibility of all player positions at all times in the game. Two referees will continue to be used but only in a supporting capacity, VAR AI will make and announce ALL decisions in real time, the VAR AI will monitor the number of contacts made by each player. Five 'contacts' will result in a yellow card, every additional contact will result in a 3 minute sin bin visit, ten contacts in a game results in a red card and expulsion from the match.

Season 2030-31 - Human officiating of the game is removed. VAR AI is now in complete control of all the match decisions. Now that the game is virtually contactless, fans have the option to watch the match via player's bodycams in real time.

Season 2031-32 Football as we once knew it is dead.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

October 17 2022

We've been here before, in mid-August to be precise. Sky's Greame Souness was famously pulled up by the woke media for his comment that the Chelsea-Spurs match had been 'a man's game', a welcome break from the non-contact spectacle that is served up on most weekends in the world's Premier League. That day too VAR had played its part in the controversy, there was a red card apiece for each manager after a vigorous post-match handshake threatened to turn into a form of Turkish wrestling but most of all the neutral was left with a feeling that they had witnessed something special. 

On Sunday we observed the now 'must see' Anfield clash between the two dominant clubs in English football, Liverpool and Manchester City, but for once there was no talk of the latest episode being a 'title-decider', nothing could have been further from the truth. Liverpool's impotent start to the new season had already seen them demolished at Napoli in the Champions League, turned over by 'in crisis' Manchester United at Old Trafford and bested by Arsenal at the Emirates. Their home form was also suspect, home draws with Crystal Palace and Brighton had left them thirteen points behind the Emirate owned club who, with their latest acquisition, the £850,000 per week Erling Haaland, were ripping opponents to pieces. This was going to be a slaughter.

And yet it was Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool who emerged victorious from a match which harkened back to bygone days, a blood and thunder encounter accompanied by a raucous atmosphere, usually reserved for the greatest European nights under the Anfield lights. The form book had been ripped up, the 'expert' football pundits had been hoodwinked, Pep's City had once again been nullified. The much-maligned Mo Salah proved to be the match winner as he sprinted away from a flailing City defence to calmly finish past Edison, who minutes earlier had thwarted a carbon copy opportunity with a magnificent fingertip save. The Liverpool defence, previously porous and leaden footed was back to its imperious best, the beast Haaland was kept at bay by a combination of van Dijk, Gomez and Alison, normal service had been resumed. 

Yet not everyone was happy. Pep, of course, was furious but so were some of the pundits at the VAR decision to rule out Phil Foden's fifty-third minute goal after Haaland had pulled Fabinho to the ground in the build-up. 'Inconsistency', they screamed after referee Anthony Taylor had let the game flow and allowed a much more physical approach than would normally have been accepted. Why disallow a goal for a mere shirt pull in a match that had seen many other misdemeanours being ignored by the officials? There's one thing in allowing the game to become a contact sport again but you still have to play within the laws. Pulling an opponent to the ground by his shirt was a foul in 1982, in 1992, in 2002 and it still is in 2022, exactly why should that be tolerated just because there is a willingness by the referee to allow a match to flow? Should Taylor also have turned a blind eye to tackles from behind? Professional fouls? Headbutts? Flailing arms into opponents' faces? Of course not. Then why should a shirt pull be any different? There were other instances where Taylor did, rather inexplicably, allow blatant fouls to go unpunished, the two that immediately spring to mind were both committed on Mo Salah, once where Cancelo slid in and lifted the Egyptian off his feet and later on when Silva jumped onto his back which resulted in Klopp's furious response and subsequent red card. 

But this is a perfect example of where football has to understand that it is between a rock and a hard place. No matter how much the referee on the pitch is willing to let go, the VAR at Stockley Park will not indulge such leniency. In a game where a millimetre decides whether a player is onside or offside you cannot blur the finite lines of foul or no foul in the build-up to a goal. A ball that brushes a hand is enough to rule out a thirty-five-yard screamer, there is no clemency. FIFA recently announced semi-automated offside technology which will be used in the Qatar World Cup and has already been introduced in the Champions League, maybe we need a fully automated VAR system with a tolerance setting to match the referee's approach on any given match day? Until then, a shirt pull is a shirt pull is a shirt pull.

THE DEFINITION OF MADNESS

January 2021

There was a moment in the Winter of 2020 when I finally realised that I wasn't, in fact, out of step with the vast majority of the British people over the Covid 'pandemic' due to my 'conspiracy theorist' leanings, it was, in fact, everybody else who was completely out of step with reality. When you sense that something is not quite right, self doubt often prevents you from standing up and shouting that the Emperor is indeed not wearing any clothes, but when everybody else, the public and in particular the media, are so fanatically bestowing the virtues of his glorious raiment you cannot help but think, is it maybe just me who is blind?

After months of pouring over the official Office of National Statistics figures and trying to join the dots I realised that there were quite a few dots that were being deliberately obfuscated, I and the rest of the British public weren't being given the whole story, not by the ONS nor by the BBC, Sky News, radio, the press, in fact by none of the main stream media outlets. What was worse was the stunning realisation that if you didn't swallow whole the only narrative that was being incessantly relayed day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, you were prevented from having an alternative view, nor were you able to relay this or hear any other dissenting voices in the vast Covid wilderness.

Imagine for a moment that you are an avid birdwatcher. Every April you eagerly head down to the south coast of England to observe and count the numbers of your favourite migrating bird, the African Swallow. You have completed this journey on a countless number of occasions before, since you were a young kid in fact, always in early April, and this year you are hoping to better all your previous year's totals. In the past five years you have spotted 115, 130, 125, 123 and 118 African Swallows respectively. 

This year when you arrive at your patch you are greeted by a local ornithologist, who will accompany you during your birdwatching session. After a few minutes your luck is in, or so you think, when you spot an African Swallow in the distance. 'Oh hang on' says the ornithologist, 'that's actually a European Swallow, not an African Swallow, they both look very similar and the two are easily mistaken for one another'. 'Oh', you reply, 'I could have sworn that it was an African but you are the expert, it's a good thing that you are here to correct me'. 

You keep watching and it's not long before you spot another likely suspect. 'Ah this one is definitely an African Swallow' you say with confidence and start to note it down in your little book. 'Oh no' says the expert, 'you're wrong again, this is another European Swallow, it's not an African I'm afraid, they are remarkably similar looking and have the very same mannerisms'. Disappointed, but bowing to the expert's keener eye, you scrub out your mistaken entry and wait for another opportunity. Within the hour you spot what this time is most certainly an African Swallow, 'you know what?' says the bird expert, 'this one is also a European Swallow, they are remarkably similar to the Africans'. 

You are now becoming a little despondent, you have been watching African Swallows for years and have never had any problem identifying them before, you have hardly ever seen a European Swallow as they are usually in much smaller numbers than their African counterparts, you are now beginning to doubt not only your own eyes but your own mind. After several more mistaken identities, you still haven't seen a single African Swallow. Later on, the bird expert says that he has to move onto another group of birdwatchers and he is going to leave you to continue on your own. Before he goes, he gives you a word of warning. 'As you seem to be having trouble separating European from African Swallows, any more that you see today just note them down as European as that is what they will be, there can't be any African Swallows migrating this year after all'. One hundred and fifty European Swallows later you decide to pack up and go home, desperately disappointed that you have failed to see a single African Swallow.

That evening when you get home you log onto your favourite birdwatching web site and discover that in fact you are not alone, no one has seen an African Swallow this season at all, except for a couple of cases which are now thought to have actually been European Swallows instead. The European Swallows, on the other hand, have been migrating in record numbers this year and have accounted for virtually every case of a Swallow being recorded on UK shores. This revelation comes a quite a shock to you and so you delve deeper only to discover that it is the same story in every other country as well, only European Swallows have been recorded this year, there have been no African Swallows at all!

In November 2020 the World Health Organization published its figures of the number of Covid-19 and Influenza cases worldwide for the previous year. To everyone's astonishment it transpired that Influenza had all but virtually disappeared. Since March 2020, when most of the world locked down, there had hardly been a recorded case of Influenza but of course there had been millions of recorded cases of Covid-19. How could this have happened? How could Influenza have completely disappeared? After all, Influenza, according to both the British medical journal 'The Lancet' and the WHO, kills on average, 650,000 people each year, but between March and November 2020, that figure had reduced to virtually zero. So, what was the cause for this remarkable transformation? The Scientific American journal announced that a combination of mask wearing and social distancing measures had produced the extraordinary effects, and that the drop-off in the number of Influenza cases since Covid-19 appeared was 'swift and global'. Greg Poland, who, for decades, had studied Influenza at the Mayo Clinic, announced that 'There's just no flu circulating' and his deduction was endorsed by the fact that just 700 US citizens had died of Flu during the period 2020-21, compared to 22,000 US deaths the previous year and 34,000 two seasons ago. They didn't however explain how the wearing of masks and social distancing, combined with extreme lockdown measures, had effectively killed off Influenza but it hadn't also put a stop to Covid-19. The symptoms of the two are, after all, remarkably similar and both are transmitted in virtually the same way. 

The real answer of course is so simple that a child could see it, it doesn't take an epidemiologist to work it out, or at least it shouldn't. If such conclusions can be both peddled by 'scientific minds' and even more remarkably believed by the public then there really is no hope for a very large swathe of the populous. As I said at the onset, I realised that common sense had no part to play in this manufactured drama and it certainly wasn't me who was out of step. Unfortunately, I am still waiting for significant numbers of others to arrive at their own awakening, I fear however that for far too many it is already far, far too late. 

 FOOTBALL - THE NEW NORMAL?

Friday, October 23rd 2020

Since life was ruined by the incredible reaction to a 'pandemic' that in ten months has killed 0.014% of the population, if of course you believe the questionable official statistics, many things which we once took for granted have either vanished or been altered so drastically as to make them not worth the effort anymore. 

Some would have you believe that this is exactly the whole purpose of the exercise, show the people what they are missing but don't let them actually enjoy the full benefits as they used to, give them the 'new normal' and after a while they will get used to it, in the same way as they are getting used to queueing outside 

supermarkets and giving their names and telephone numbers when they enter a restaurant. These are the sort of measures that wouldn't look out of place in North Korea or in the old East Germany, it will no doubt prove to be the thin end of the wedge, welcome to the 'new normal'.

When Liverpool owners FSG attempted to hike the season ticket prices at Anfield a couple of years ago the Kop rebelled, a new banner appeared which read - 'Football Without Fans Is Nothing' and how true that has proven to be at the start of the hollow new football season. When the 2010-20 season was finally restarted there was at that time no choice but to complete the fixtures behind closed doors, calls to abandon the season which had already seen nearly 75% of matches played were thankfully allayed, but be under no illusion, this was purely a financial decision, it had nothing to do with integrity or with doing what was right for the game.

And so we have moved on to a new Premier League season which sees matches sequentially played by super paid superstars in sterile, empty stadiums complete with a canned audience and photographs of fans faces placed where real people once used to sit. Welcome to the 'new normal'. 

It's difficult to see what the future holds for the game, how long can the clubs outside the Premier League's financial bubble survive without spectators, if the gap between the top clubs and the rest wasn't already big enough it is now threatening to become an unbreachable chasm. Just how likely is it that we will retain the the same ninety-two professional club structure once whatever this current situation is, has finally run its course?

The current situation is of course much bigger than football, and like most other things inside of the game it can only be remedied by external forces which based on the past seven months of mismanagement by the 'powers that be', isn't giving me much hope. As we enter the flu season it is highly likely that the nation will once again be mentally clasped in irons and physically locked in our own homes. We keep being told that we are in 'unprecedented times' which seems to mean that anything goes in relation to absolutely anything, common sense is a thing of the past, we must 'follow the science' no matter how nonsensical it actually is. Computer generated models, based on worst case scenarios, produced and endorsed by people who do not even bother to adhere to their own advice now forms the basis of 'fact'. Debate in the media is dead, there is but a single narrative and no alternative views can be tolerated. Welcome to the 'new normal'.  

VAR PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON POOR FIFA/UEFA CHOICES

Monday December 23rd 2019

Since the clamour to introduce VAR into the English Premier League became a reality at the start of the 2019-20 season, to 'help match officials' and to ensure that they get 'decisions right', the spotlight has not-surprisingly been directed at the fact that neither of those two objectives has been realised. The laws 

and their interpretation have become even more muddled, to the point that there is a new element of surprise that has been introduced into the game where no one, players, managers, supporters nor commentators fully understand what is going on anymore.

The spotlight however hasn't been directed at the continued and often increased ineptitude of the match officials, who appear to have been neither helped by VAR nor the new interpretation of the rules. FIFA are currently making a hard sell for their latest proposal of a 24 team Club World Cup competition,

which is unsurprisingly not getting much support from the UEFA clubs. However they continue to fundamentally damage their own argument for such competitions with their flawed decisions to firstly award the host venues for such tournaments to undeserving hosts and secondly, to continue to give the 

adjudication of the finals to un-deserving match officials. Liverpool have been on the receiving end of these questionable decisions in both the UEFA Super Cup final against Chelsea and again in Saturday's FIFA's Club World Cup Final against Brazil's Flamengo. 

If FIFA are to stand any chance of persuading the European clubs that a 24 team tournament is a viable option they certainly didn't help their cause by awarding the adjudication of Saturday's Final to Qatari Abdulrahman Al Jassim. No doubt, the current climate of 'inclusivity' dominated FIFA's decision to award FIFA's most prestigious club match to a local match official but if this tradition is to hold water then they must ensure that those officials are at least up to the task. Al Jassim, quite clearly was not. The 32 year old Qatari topped a bizarre performance, in which he was duped on more than one occasion by the theatrics of the Flamengo players, by completely reversing his 91st minute decision to award Liverpool a penalty when Sadio Mane was clipped as he prepared to shoot on goal by the flailing foot of Flamengo defender Rafinha. After initially booking Rafinha and awarding the spot kick he quite correctly waited for VAR to decide whether the offence had taken place in or outside of the penalty area, it was a close call. Once again the question should be asked whether the referee had made a 'clear and obvious' mistake but in the world of VAR it is the millimetre which is King. 

As Salah stood on the penalty spot waiting to take the spot kick, Rafinha went through his complete repartee of feigning innocence, if the foul was indeed outside the area he would surely be shown a red card. Following the VAR check Al Jassim either decided to or was more likely asked to view the touchline monitor to make the decision 'for himself' but after studying the incident from all of the angles available to him, except the one which clearly showed contact between Rafinha's left foot and Mane's right, he inexplicably decided that it was neither a penalty nor a foul. Rafinha's yellow card was rescinded and a Flamengo drop ball was awarded, rather than the goal kick which should have restarted play. More cynical viewers may have questioned the Qatari's motives but no one could deny that his overall performance was well below the standards that should be expected at a world final.

FIFA, to be fair, have a history of awarding critical matches to out of their depth match officials, the classic example being the grudge 1986 World Cup Quarter Final in Mexico City between Argentina and England. In their wisdom, FIFA awarded this game to Tunisian, Ali Bin Nasser who managed to miss Diego Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal, which everyone else in the stadium and the millions watching on TV managed to clearly see. Even more worrying than FIFA's decision was UEFA's determination to grant the 2019 Super Cup Final, earlier this season, to female match official Stephanie Frappart who had only ever officiated at two senior men's matches in her career prior to that game. The equality panic button was firmly pushed by UEFA in this instance and they were in no mood to admit that they had risked the game's integrity to win brownie points with the women's cause.

On the whole Frappart's performance was competent but when experience was required in extra time she was exposed as being hopelessly inept. A fifty-fifty challenge in the penalty area between Chelsea forward Abraham and Liverpool keeper Adrian saw the Chelsea player theatrically throw himself to the ground in an attempt to win his side a penalty, with no contact being made by the Liverpool keeper. Frappart incorrectly pointed to the spot and then even more ashamedly the strangle hold of political correctness prevented the VAR from overturning the obvious mistake and risk exposing UEFA's flawed decision to appoint her as the match official in the first place. In fact a camera angle which clearly showed that no contact had been made during the challenge was strangely not available to the VAR despite it being shown immediately by multiple broadcasters. The penalty stood and was duly dispatched.

Whilst FIFA & UEFA do not have a monopoly on poor officiating, they are putting processes in place which are certainly leading the way. Premier League officials such as Anthony Taylor are quite clearly proving to English audiences that he is very much in the FIFA/UEFA mould with some quite scandalous officiating in recent weeks. Fans can, begrudgingly, put up with honest mistakes however the current FIFA/UEFA blueprint is denying clubs, players and fans alike the level playing field that is usually assumed to be a given.

NEW SEASON, SAME OLD STORY?

Friday 2nd August 2019

At the dawn of the new Premier League season, the question is quite simple. Can anyone stop the Abu Dhabi oil money men of Manchester City from claiming their third Premier League title in succession and probably the other two domestic trophies along with it?

If the previous two seasons are anything to go by then the answer is an emphatic, No! City have amassed 198 points in those two campaigns and who would bet against that becoming 298 before the season is out. As we saw with Chelsea back in 2003, when an obscene influx of foreign money is introduced into the English game the status quo is skewed and as is the case with Manchester City, it is thrown out of the window completely. I laugh when I hear pundits defend Chelsea's spending under Roman Abramovic, 'Chelsea we're already competing for trophies before Abramovic arrived', 'he was just bringing Chelsea up to the same level as their main rivals' they argue, and 'their success was mainly due to the inspired appointment of Jose Mourinho as manager'.

That first point is interesting. Before the Russian roubles started rolling into the Bridge in 2003, Chelsea had in fact advanced somewhat from their mundane existence that prevailed after their previous heyday of the late sixties and early nineteen seventies. But let's not get too carried away here, what constituted a 'heyday' back then was no more than a League Cup win (in the days before it was mandatory to play in the competition), a single F.A. Cup victory and the subsequent crack at the low quality European Cup Winners Cup crown, which they won. Under the guidance of Chairman Ken Bates, Chelsea made a number of startling purchases in the transfer market which caused the footballing world sit up and take notice. In 1995 former two time World Soccer Player of the Year, Ruud Gullit signed, on a free transfer, but the wages must have been staggering for that time. Soon after, newly crowned European Cup winner Gianluca Vialli joined from Juventus, Frank LeBoeuf, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianfranco Zola (who was nicknamed 'MaraZola' when he graced the same San Paolo stadium 

in Naples with Diego Maradona) completed a star studded line up. Before long they were joined by Uruguay's Gus Poyet. Just how could Chelsea afford all these world stars? 

Not surprisingly their fortunes on the pitch started to match the fortunes they were paying off it. The F.A. Cup was won again in 1997, The Football League Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup were captured a year later and their second F.A. Cup win came in 2000. But despite their foreign stars, Chelsea couldn't compete with Manchester United and London rivals Arsenal, who between them hoovered up all the League titles between 2000 & 2004. At the end of the 2002-03 season it became abundantly clear that Chelsea hadn't in fact been able to afford their many stellar signings as they announced that they were over £80M in debt, Bates and the club were bailed out by the Russian oligarch who was looking for a London home. Within two seasons of that take over, Chelsea landed their first English League Title in fifty years under manager Jose Mourinho, following an unprecedented spending spree. The Portuguese, of course, wouldn't have been anywhere within a hundred miles of Stamford Bridge if he hadn't been guaranteed an unlimited Rouble ladened war chest to spend his way to success. Since his initial exploits with Porto, Mourinho has only ever plied his trade at clubs whose raison d'etre is to bludgeon their way to the top via the cheque book.  Chelsea's spending continued unabated and the title was retained in 2006 and recaptured in 2010, there were of course more League and F.A. 

Cup wins thrown into the mix, culminating with the European Champions League title in 2012. None of this had anything to do with the money of course. That was all purely coincidental.

Likewise, Manchester City were a club whose glories were all very much rooted in the past. The late nineteen sixties and early seventies was the last time that they could consider themselves to be amongst English football's elite circle of clubs, that was of course, until the oil money started to flow in August 2008.

City had last won the League Title back in 1968 and spent nine seasons outside of the top flight between then and their next title triumph in 2012. Their rise to prominence wasn't as immediate as Chelsea's despite the money being thrown around, in the summer of 2009 they splurged an unprecedented £100M plus on purchases but still failed to finish in the Champions League places. The spending continued unabated until finally their first F.A Cup since 1969 was won in 2011, the following season the artificial transformation was completed with a lopsided title win on goal difference from rivals Manchester United.

Since then three more titles have been secured and with the Premier League's highest ever paid manager Pep Guardiola now at the helm, it is difficult to see City's strangle hold on the English game being relinquished any time soon. Accusations of financial irregularities continue to dog the club and in particular their Abu Dhabi owners but with the English Premier League and European governing body, UEFA seemingly powerless or unprepared to intervene, City's 'financial doping', as Arsene Wenger once described it, threatens to condemn English football to the mundane title processions that are regularly tolerated in leagues such as the Bundesliga and Serie A.

In November 2018 Amnesty International went as far to accuse City's owners of brazenly attempting to 'sportswash' Abu Dhabi's 'deeply tarnished image' by pouring money into the Premier League club. A number of whistle-blowing files from the Football Leaks website pointed an accusing finger at the club's unusual financial workings, these have been, of course, strenuously refuted by the Manchester club. Undoubtedly, as even Chelsea have found, the seemingly unlimited success that City's current spending power would appear to guarantee, will dissipate at some point. Maybe we'll have to wait for Giardiola's departure from the club to see this come to fruition but by then the Premier League's unique selling point could have been tarnished forever. City winning three, four or five titles in a row will downgrade the competitive nature of the English game to a level comparative to that of the Bayern, Juventus and PSG domestic monopolies.

Whilst the Premier League's open door policy for foreign, and in City's case, state ownership of English league clubs, has coincided with a golden era in the game's history, they are in serious danger of slaying the very same Goose that lays those golden eggs. Their one saving grace is the ability of clubs like Liverpool and Tottenham, to expose City's European weaknesses and keep that domination to a purely domestic level. 

Title Prediction

1st    Manchester City

2nd   Liverpool     

3rd    Tottenham

4th    Arsenal

5th    Leicester City

6th    Chelsea

7th    Manchester United

8th    Everton

9th    Wolves

10th  Watford

11th  Southampton

12th  West Ham

13th  Burnley

14th  Bournemouth

15th  Newcastle United

16th  Crystal Palace

17th  Brighton

18th  Aston Villa

19th  Norwich City

20th  Sheffield United     

THE PREMIER LEAGUE NEEDS A GENUINE TITLE RACE

Tuesday 7th August 2018 

As the start of the new football season dawns, the English game needs a change to keep it at the highest echelons of world football. It needs a Premier League title race, not a title chase nor a title procession but a genuine to and fro title race. Last season we saw Pep Guardiola's Manchester City run riot and become the first side to clock up 100 Premier League points, this was nineteen points more than second place Manchester United could muster and twenty-five more than the side who beat them on three separate occasions throughout the season, Liverpool. Previous recent Premier League 'title races' have seen Tottenham finish seven points behind Chelsea in 2016-17 and eleven points behind un-fancied Leicester City in 2015-16. This was the season when Spurs managed to finish third in a two horse title race, Arsenal stole second place on the final day. Neither season produced anything to remotely suggest that the title may be wrenched from the clinch of the run-away leaders, this is something that has to change this coming season. For so long the Premier Leagues' main competitors on the global stage, La Liga, the Bundesliga and, the somewhat diminished, Serie A have seen the dominance of the established order of Barcelona & Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Juventus consign Spain, Germany and Italy's national championships to moribund and predictable campaigns. In the last ten seasons Barcelona, Bayern and Juve have each won seven league titles. Juve have won their seven titles in a row, Bayern six in a row and Barca have won four of the last six titles that were up for grabs. In the same period in the Premier League no team has managed to defend a title (the last team to do this was Alex Ferguson's Man United in 2007-08 & 2008-09) but Leicester are the only team outside of the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea to win a crown. With Mourinho's United looking decidedly off the pace in the pre season and Sarri's Chelsea likely to lose more influential players than they can sign, Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool look the most likely side who can mount a challenge to Guardiola's City. Unlike their ultimately doomed title bid in 2013-14, Liverpool will this season also have the distraction of a Champions League campaign to contend with, Klopp's side's counter-attacking style is made for European football and only Real Madrid managed to contain their exhilarating attack last term. Despite Klopp building a squad that should be able to compete on both fronts, it is unlikely that the Reds will be able to better City at home and on the continent, the Premier League title is what Liverpool fans' crave whilst City desire the illusive Champions League crown to really establish themselves at the top table of European royalty. Despite not strengthening his squad in the summer, Mauricio Pochetino's Tottenham must be included as contenders in any title shake up that may arise. Tottenham have established themselves in the Premier League's top four in each of the last four seasons but will again face a up-coming campaign where they have to come to terms with the distraction of a new stadium.

Most people thought that playing their home games at Wembley last season would cost Spurs a Champions League spot but thirteen wins, four draws and only two home defeats helped secure third place, their new home stadium will open on 15th September when they host Liverpool in their fifth game of the season. The old adage that you never see a poor bookmaker underlines the odds that make Man City firm title favourites with all the UK bookies, but if we are to continue to see the EPL as the league of choice for the vast majority of the world's football fans, City cannot be allowed to walk away with another title, unchallenged. Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal have had enough time and have invested enough money to ensure that at least one of them prevent City from completing back-to-back titles. My money is on Liverpool to provide the sternest test but they may have to sacrifice their European campaign to secure their first domestic title in twenty- eight years. 

Title Prediction

1st    Manchester City

2nd   Liverpool      

3rd    Tottenham

4th    Manchester United 

5th    Arsenal

6th    Chelsea

7th    Leicester City

8th    Burnley

9th    Everton

10th  Crystal Palace

11th  West Ham

12th  Southampton

13th  Wolves

14th  Newcastle United

15th  Fulham

16th  Bournemouth

17th  Huddersfield Town

18th  Brighton

19th  Watford

20th  Cardiff City    

Q. HOW DO YOU SPELL THE END OF FOOTBALL? 

A.  V.A.R.

Wednesday 7 March 2018

On a cold Saturday evening in late January 2018 we witnessed the awful future of top class football, a future that will kill the game that we all grew up to love. What started as a surprisingly open and exciting FA Cup fourth round tie between Liverpool & West Bromwich Albion in front of a full house at Anfield quickly turned into farce and resulted in exactly the type of controversy that the Video Assistant Referee was meant to eradicate from the game. Let me put my cards on the table. I am against all types of video assistance being introduced into the beautiful game. Why? Because I am a purist who believes that a game played by twenty-two pub players on a Sunday morning should adhere to exactly the same laws that govern the multi-million-pound superstars of the English Premier League and any professional league throughout the world for that matter. We cannot allow the game to be split by greed and self-edification by those who see football as their own personal cash-cow. The game doesn’t belong exclusively to the rich and powerful to do with it what they please. 

Whenever I hear pundits or broadcasters calling for video assistance, their justification for such an introduction always relates back to money. 'How much money is that bad decision going to cost a club?' The impact on the players, managers or supporters wronged by the decision is always a secondary consideration, if at all, their first concern is primarily financial. 

The second argument is that VAR works in other sports like Rugby, Cricket or Tennis, so why can't it work in Football? Surely, I don't have to point out that football is not Rugby, it is not Tennis and it is certainly not Cricket, all those games have natural breaks in play that allow for VAR and are not the fast moving, fluid game that is loved by so many passionate fans throughout the world. Rugby is always hailed as the closest sport to football which is successfully using VAR but all you have to do is to watch one of the Six Nation matches to see that referees will not give any major decision without first consulting with the video assistant. If there is even the slightest doubt in the referee or touch judges' mind the assistant is consulted and it is his point of view rather than the match officials who decides. Since the Anfield debacle we have seen even more clearly how VAR will kill the game. At Wembley during the fifth round FA Cup replay between Tottenham and Rochdale we saw just how VAR can destroy not only the match itself but the viewing spectacle for the fans in attendance. Not only were the paying crowd left feeling mystified by the continuous interference and confusion being generated but the payers and managers were also struggling to see any merit in continuing with this ridiculous intrusion. Some fans chose to leave the stadium during the first half of the match as they no longer had any confidence that what they were watching was a conventional game of football. Not only did we see the VAR overturn a perfectly good Tottenham goal for no reason, players were also left standing around waiting for decisions to be made on a night when temperatures were well below freezing. 

At the Liverpool – West Bromwich Albion match in January, Albion manager Alan Pardew blamed the players inactivity during the many VAR breaks in the game on two of his players suffering hamstring injuries. It was inevitable that once the money men got their tentacles into football, technology was never going to be far behind and with it comes the true dividing line between the haves and the have-nots. Surprisingly, FIFA resisted the calls to introduce goal line technology for a number of years before finally relenting and allowing trials. Their submission was heavily influenced by the number of embarrassing refereeing decisions during the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa which of course included Frank Lampard's over the line 'equalizer' against Germany, which was seen by everyone in the stadium except for the referee and linesman. With the introduction of goal line technology Pandora's box was opened and it was only a matter of time before the all seeing eye of video technology came crawling out with it as well.  

Despite me being against goal line technology it does have the advantage of at least being a straight 'yes' or 'no' decision, there is no 'maybe'. The ball has either completely crossed the line and is a goal or it has not. Simple, fact. Goal or no goal, there is no ambiguity. But again this introduction has fundamentally changed the game. Not every match can have the luxury of goal line technology, not every Championship side for example can use GLT in this seasons campaign. Birmingham City's St. Andrews, Barnsley's Oakwell and The New Den stadium at Millwall do not have sufficient floodlighting levels to support the technology so we already have a two-tier structure in the Championship with different laws being used to referee the games. There is no GLT in England's League One or League Two. France's Ligue 1 suspended the use of  GLT in January 2018 after two separate errors failed to alert the referee that goals had been scored, with technology also comes the misconception of infallibility.

The F.A.'s and Football League's decision to use their two premier cup competitions this season as a testing ground for VAR is as baffling as it is misconceived. The Football League's Carabao Cup Semi Finals perfectly highlighted this unbalanced perspective. Both of the Chelsea vs Arsenal games had VAR technology available whilst the Bristol City vs Manchester City matches did not. And why not?  Because Bristol City's Ashton Gate ground was 'not suitable' for the system. So whilst Chelsea and Arsenal had the  'benefit' from a video assistant, Bristol City and Manchester City did not. Hardly a level playing field?  

Once again the F.A. further diminished the credibility of their competition by allowing VAR in a handful of matches, again only at grounds which could support the technological demands. The farce that occurred in the Wembley replay between Tottenham and Rochdale was compounded by the fact that the initial match at Rochdale's Spotland Stadium did not have VAR available. Consistently inconsistent. One of the many things about VAR that is not clear is what is it actually being used for? Well its purposes are:- awarding goals, penalty decisions, red card decisions and cases of mistaken identity. 

So, every goal that is scored will be reviewed by VAR. During the Tottenham - Rochdale match fans stopped celebrating after goals were scored as no one knew if they would stand or not and this will be the norm once VAR is given the green light in the Premier League. When a team scores fans will have to sit and wait (for a average of two minutes and forty seconds) for the 'goal' to be reviewed by the assistant and awarded, or not as the case may be. Only at that point will they be able to cheer, if they can still be bothered to or subsequently vent their frustrations. VAR will kill spontaneity, it will kill celebration. Without that is there any point in having spectators in the ground at all? And without spectators what is the point of the game itself?  The games most contentious decision, offside, is not being reviewed, unless of course a goal is scored when an offside player is interfering with play, nor are fouls outside of the penalty area, nor corners or thrown-ins being incorrectly awarded. So a clear goal kick which is incorrectly awarded as a corner, resulting in a goal, will be allowed to stand, no questions asked. The perpetrators of VAR are not interested in these types of injustice. Penalties, like red cards decisions are subjective, often not black and white and often missed by the officials, or more commonly, awarded when no foul has actually been committed at all. So exactly why would a referee or linesman take it upon themselves to unilaterally make this decision, knowing that if they get it wrong they will be told that it is going to be reviewed anyway.

A linesman who doesn't flag for a penalty and then is over-ruled by VAR is not going to make that mistake a second time, he is going to ask the referee to review. Also a referee who is 50-50 as to whether a penalty should be awarded or not is not going to risk his own judgement when fifteen cameras could give VAR a better chance of getting the correct outcome. Play will have to be stopped whenever a penalty appeal is made. Can you imagine a situation when a referee is not 100% sure whether to award a penalty and the ball is still in play? VAR could easily take over three minutes to make a decision, as was seen in the Liverpool - West Brom match, by which time the opposition could have gone down the other end of the pitch and scored or had one of their own players fouled in the opponents penalty area. All this time the referee is trying to officiate whilst play continues, still waiting on the original penalty decision. Total farce. 

I can't understand why some people are so hell-bent on making football perfect, completely error free? Football is not perfect, it is not black and white, it never has been so why make this fundamental change? Why try and turn the game into a sterile, fractured, computerised spectacle? And despite the fact that from my perspective football is far from perfect, it is still fundamentally the game I grew up with. We have seen football become practically a non-contact sport, we have become accustomed to players falling to the ground when any physicality arises, where if there are 'hands on' it is foul and the player has the right to go down if he feels a touch. The offside law has become so fragmented that it is now virtually impossible to explain its various nuances and the players are so pampered, especially financially, that the average fan cannot relate to their world. But for all that, football is still a very simple game, played by eleven a side and officiated by one referee and two linesmen, or whatever they want to call them nowadays. And the referee's word is final. Except where VAR is involved!