We’ve made the case time and again for why VAR, soccer’s video replay system, sucks ass. Apparently our cries for sanity have fallen on deaf ears, because reports say the chuckleheads at FIFA have just agreed to inflict VAR upon the upcoming World Cup in Russia.

Yesterday’s Tottenham-Rochdale match had all the ingredients for great game. It had stakes, as an F.A. Cup knockout match; it had narrative, since it pit a Goliath of a club against a lower league David; it had drama, after it went into halftime tied at one goal apiece as Rochdale fought valiantly to keep their dream…

Video replay in soccer, as in all sports, sucks. This is true mostly for philosophical reasons, but also for logistical ones, too. Like when this Boavista fan inadvertently boned their own team by waving a huge flag that blocked the camera angle that probably would’ve invalidated the opponent’s goal:

Thank god for Brandon Graham. It was his effectively game-sealing strip-sack of Tom Brady—an actual, incontrovertible football play, a display of the kind of strength and athleticism and determination that bring us to the sport in the first place, a moment for which there was no reason to doubt your lying eyes or…

The NFL’s stupid, byzantine rule book got in the way of our ability to enjoy the sport again last weekend. This time, Bills receiver Kelvin Benjamin had a sensational touchdown catch against the Patriots taken away by a replay cop stationed back at headquarters in New York, and even one of the officials on the field…

The scourge of video reviews of subjective refereeing decisions has already infected soccer. The predominating viewpoint—mostly among soccer fans who haven’t seen how replay and inevitable replay-creep have poisoned American sports—on this unfortunate phenomenon has been that replay is good. But as officials in…

For most of the soccer world, this summer’s Confederations Cup is the first time fans will have seen the sport’s much ballyhooed instant replay system live and in action. And as anyone familiar with replay’s fundamental epistemological shortcomings could’ve predicted, the whole process blows.

With the widespread implementation of goal-line technology and early experimentation with video replay ongoing, it is clear that technology in soccer officiating is here to stay. Whether that’s a good thing remains to be seen.

There’s a decent chance the NL Wild Card ultimately comes down to this:

Today in “manager challenges you didn’t expect to see”: Craig Counsell successfully challenging the Brewers’ Khris Davis being called out after hitting a home run. Home plate ump Will Little called Davis out after the Giants appealed, tossing the ball to the plate claiming the Milwaukee outfielder hadn’t touched it…

Bill Belichick was grumpily baffled by the NFL owners' unwillingness to even consider his plan to install permanent cameras aimed at the sidelines and goal lines in every stadium. And he was even more upset they claimed it wasn't a possibility because it would have been too expensive. Well, I guess someone rifled…

This seems as uncontroversial as it comes: everyone, from fans to bookmakers to players and coaches and officials alike, just wants the NFL to get calls right. So why is there so much resistance to Bill Belichick's long-fought attempts to have cameras permanently installed on every field's boundary lines? The owners…

NFL owners rejected 12 of 13 proposals to change the replay process, including the Patriots' proposal that every single play be challengeable. The only replay-related rule that passed will allow officials to use video review to put the right amount of time on the clock at the end of halves.

The New York Times has a nice obituary of Tony Verna, the man who invented instant replay. [New York Times]