Another call for video refereeing

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2011/08/21/revealed-the-table-that-shows-arsenal-and-blackpool-were-cheated-last-season-210801/

REVEALED: The table that shows Arsenal and Blackpool were cheated last season
By Nick Harris
SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year
21 August 2011
Arsenal would have been runners-up in the Premier League last season and Blackpool wouldn’t have been relegated if match officials hadn’t made mistakes. (See table at bottom).
These are the headline findings from extensive new research that re-examined 713 ‘significant’ incidents – penalties, goal line incidents, offside goals – across the Premier League’s 380 games in 2010-11.
Arsenal ended up fourth with 68 points but should in reality have won 72 points and finished second to Manchester United.
Manchester City should have won nine fewer points than they did and finished fourth.
Blackpool and Birmingham should have avoided relegation while Wigan and Wolves should have been relegated along with West Ham. (West Ham should have had seven more points than they actually got but would have gone down anyway).
The research was conducted by broadcaster and journalist Tim Long for his radio documentary, Beyond The Goal Line: Football’s Technology Debate. The programme explores the need for technology, and how officiating errors can make a material difference to clubs, and versions are being aired in Australia and Britain.
The point was not to be critical of referees – because it is accepted they do their best in good faith – but to illustrate how even simple television replays can highlight erroneous decisions. Replays have shown this again this weekend in the Premier League, for example at Arsenal and Sunderland.
Long spent 250 hours analysing the 713 incidents, each of which on their own could or did lead to a goal. Of these, 361 involved penalties given (or not), and 152 involved goals given (or not) as a result of offside calls.
‘That isn’t a massive amount of incidents when you think about it, fewer than two per game on average,’ Long tells me.
‘So supposing there was a system that allowed the video evidence to be reviewed at the time, looking at these things wouldn’t necessarily take a long time.
‘I wanted to explore the extent to which decisions about offside goals or penalty calls did, in fact, even themselves out or not, and how they made a difference to the end of season table.’
Stoke would have won two more points but these would have been sufficient to finish four places higher in the table – and win an extra £3m in prize money from the Premier League.
Examples of wrong calls included the decision that famously left Wenger ‘too disgusted to speak’ in March — when a perfectly good goal from Andrei Arshavin at 0-0 against Sunderland was chalked off in error by linesman Andy Garratt. That cost Arsenal points.
Another decision Long considered was the clear handball by Nemanja Vidic as Manchester United played Arsenal on 1 May. Coincidentally, the same linesman, Andy Garratt, was involved, failing to spot that Vidic had denied Robin van Persie a clear opportunity to score with his head.
As it transpired, Arsenal beat United in that particular game so the bad Vidic call didn’t make any points difference to Arsenal or United, although Arsenal’s goal difference would almost certainly have been better by one with a good decision.
‘Actually a lot of the significant incidents I looked at were called correctly at the time and the analysis simply ratified the good calls,’ Long says.
‘More than 500 of the decisions out of 713 were right. But that still leaves just over 200 wrong calls in significant incidents over the course of the season.
‘And while not all those would have changed a result, quite a few of them would have done so.’

Interesting read. Especially the average of 2 per game which wouldn't hold up the game at all.

I personally would love to see video reffing in. Not just 'cos of The Arsenal :P but this affected Blackpool and Birmingham so much that they were wrongly relegated. In a professional sport worth millions, surely it has to be common sense?

Peyton Manning

It's hard to take it at face value though, the research is saying that if you only changed these incidents and kept everything else exactly the same, that is how the league would look. There's no way the rest of the game after the incident would play out the same as it would no matter which way the incident went, i.e. Team A is awarded a goal that was incorrectly called offside. They then sit back for the rest of the game and defend their 1-0 lead. This guy is saying that we can simply take away that goal and look at an altered table as a result of giving them 1 point for a 0-0 draw instead of 3 for a 1-0 win, whereas in reality if that goal wasn't given, the game could and probably would have played out very differently and Team A could well have kept pushing for a more legitimate goal.

flahavaj

Tom_Brady wrote: »

It's hard to take it at face value though, the research is saying that if you only changed these incidents and kept everything else exactly the same, that is how the league would look. There's no way the rest of the game after the incident would play out the same as it would no matter which way the incident went, i.e. Team A is awarded a goal that was incorrectly called offside. They then sit back for the rest of the game and defend their 1-0 lead. This guy is saying that we can simply take away that goal and look at an altered table as a result of giving them 1 point for a 0-0 draw instead of 3 for a 1-0 win, whereas in reality if that goal wasn't given, the game could and probably would have played out very differently and Team A could well have kept pushing for a more legitimate goal.

Not to mention that you'd have to re-watch all 38 games that all 20 teams played to make sure you took into account every error that was made over the season. Pointless exercise tbh.

dfx-

Some very poor decisions given by video umpire in Cricket...an especially appalling one about 10 minutes ago between England and India. Giving someone out when there was no video evidence of it, despite looking at the video and the technology available in close up slow motion for minutes.

Video refereeing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Richard Hillman

Very interesting. With Blackpool relegated and Arsenal in a precarious position against Udinese, these decisions will have cost tens of millions. We need to oust the neo-conservatives at fifa to change things or start a new organisation to run football

CSF

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Very interesting. With Blackpool relegated and Arsenal in a precarious position against Udinese, these decisions will have cost tens of millions. We need to oust the neo-conservatives at fifa to change things or start a new organisation to run football

Ridiculously over-simplistic view of things. There is no real way of gauging how much any decision costs unless the decision is made as part of the last kick of the game. To be ranking penalties/offside decisions made in the first 10 minutes of the game serves no purpose whatsoever.

TheTownie

Agree its pointless to put together a 'correct' PL table but nevertheless with so much riding on these games for teams there is no doubt refs need more help than they are getting.

Richard Hillman

CSF wrote: »

Ridiculously over-simplistic view of things. There is no real way of gauging how much any decision costs unless the decision is made as part of the last kick of the game. To be ranking penalties/offside decisions made in the first 10 minutes of the game serves no purpose whatsoever.

It shows how many bad decisions that lead to goals scored there are in football. You are insulting people's and undermining your own intellegence if you think we honestly believe that these matches would of ended the way the project scored it. The majority of these decisions could be easily overturned if video refereeing is introduced. There have been a lot of goals that have been scored and disallowed which shouldnt have.

maybe if Arsenal didn't spend the whole game moaning about these bad decisions and getting on with it they could have finished runners up all by themselves and not with the help of some fairy tale standings...

ImpossibleDuck

I think the law of averages should be used along with video refereeing to ensure correct decisions. What I mean is, say for example there's a ball cleared off the line but it looks like a goal so they go to video technology. Instead of having 1-2 people decide. Have about 10 (impartial) people vote automatically and then a decision is given. This would surely be a lot more accurate than one fella down on the field standing 30 yards away from the net trying to decide whether or not it went in!

If all 10 people vote electronically immediately after they see the footage, it wouldn't take much time at all.

I know it sounds a little difficult but it could be very accurate.

Just my idea

PiE

ImpossibleDuck wrote: »

If all 10 people vote electronically immediately after they see the footage, it wouldn't take much time at all.

I know it sounds a little difficult but it could be very accurate.

Why stop there? Sure just let every Sky subscriber vote on the red button.

Leiva

Who does Nick Harris support ?