Spot on but also the blame culture & referee abuse needs to stop too. I'm as guilty as anyone for criticising them on here but when you see actual club accounts publicly lambasting & abusing them on social media for the world to see it's outrageous.
Having refereed a fair bit myself it's far from easy & mistakes are genuine.
I have only done it casually & with only the very basic training but for those that take it on the process is incredibly arduous.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Now, how do we improve that? This is where I think the FA etc. have gone about things completely the wrong way.
Referees are self employed &, in my experience, get very little backing & support from their FA for the decisions they make or defending them against the abuse they receive.
We still only have quite a select group who are Professional (and that only happened in 2001) & the pay & support they get, whilst not insignificant, is a fraction of what's sloshing around in the rest of the game.
I think by now most know my loathing of VAR & I think whilst claiming to be to help referees the way it is implemented actually massively undermines them. Imagine having your decision publicly questioned live on TV in front of an audience of millions. Even when instructed to view the pitch side monitor themselves they're still unable to then make a genuine decision as it's only human nature to have that voice in the back of your head saying "VAR have told me to look, they think I've fucked up"
A total of 16 refs are involved in the documentary, which UEFA are releasing as a free-to-air four-part series giving unprecedented access to officials and the inner workings of VAR.
www.google.com
When referees go to the screen, overturning their decision is a 'fait accompli' with the 'review' only done to help sell the U-turn to fans
theathletic.com
In my opinion & I think in most people's, VAR has
not significantly improved the game.
They would have been much better investing that money in improving training, conditions & support for referees as well as trying to attract new, young referees to the sport.
Retrospective punishments for instances like Godden's are far more palatable to me & imo likely to lead to improved player behaviour than the current VAR stuff but maybe that's just me.