no blood no foul

I mean to answer your question I’d have goal line technology for every touchline. Takes one less job away from the assistant referee let’s them focus on the rest of the game.

But you can’t take away subjectivity otherwise every foul is a card. Refs need to be able to make judgement calls about intent etc no rule book can cover every eventually.

Maybe in the future advanced AI learning could compare a foul to 100s of others in a database and suggest a punishment to improve consistence but as long as refs are human and the game is played by humans it’ll be subjective.

Give managers challenges. The ref makes a call, and they go to VAR only if a manager challenges the call. Managers get 3 challenges per match. If they fail in a challenge they lose a challenge.

It’s not possible for most rules to be made objective e.g. how can you have an objective rule for fouls without making the game non contact? As nice an idea as it is it’s just not possible. Off-sides are objective and I’m sure the technology will be ironed out in the next couple of years. But for any decision involving fouls the game would be better off getting rid of VAR, and accepting rules are subjective and the final say is with the ref. What’s the point in VAR if you can have two refs look at the same footage and arrive at a different decision.

Get rid of VAR. Keep only goal line technology People complained about refs getting decisions wrong so VAR came in. Now people still complain about refs getting decisions wrong but the game also gets stopped for 3-4 minutes at a time multiple times per game.

When VAR was first introduced it was done well. It was only used for clear and obvious errors. The more people complain, the more VAR gets used because “if its there why not use it”. We have not been able to contain the use of VAR to what its original purpose was.

Football is subjective. Sometimes a decision goes against your team and thats part of it. I despise this search for perfect officiating and constantly bickering over what are often subjective instances in games. Subjective decisions aren’t suddenly going to be universally agreed upon because we add more technology. Let refs make decisions, let the game flow

I’d allow a certain amount of challenges to their calls. Maybe have a sub taken away if the call isn’t over turned

VAR - move to rugbys system. One of the biggest issues right now is on field refs are still expected to make every decision as they see it live, with VAR only intervening for clear and obvious errors. So for example if a goal is given on field, even if that was an error, unless VAR sees something egregious it doesn’t get overturned cos they don’t want to make the ref look bad. Use rugbys system where if the ref isn’t sure, the game gets pauses and he asks a very clear question. “looks to me like serious foul play from 23, do you see any reason why I can’t award the red card?”

Diving - ref doesn’t award dives unless its clear. Every single foul awarded in the game gets checked after the game by an independent panel and if no contact is made the player gets a 1 match ban. Watch how quickly people stop doing it.

Tactical fouls - the rodri special when an opposition player is through clear in transition and gets pulled down, red card. That is the number one best chance to score in football and 90% of them get stopped because players know they only get booked.

Handballs in penalty area - none of this natural position bollocks, if the player makes a clear attempt to move their hand toward a ball to block it, penalty. If not, no penalty. Fouls are awarded for cheating not because a shot going 80mph glanced your finger when your hands are by your side.

Fouls in penalty area - if there is contact with the ball before the player, no penalty. Objective. Does the ball move before the player makes contact with the player? No penalty.

Offside - daylight between players is offside, everything else isn’t. None of this subjective rubbish selecting which part of the body the line is used with.

You can’t. Next

You can’t completely get rid of subjectivity. You can reduce it. The more refs you have in a panel, less subjective the decisions will be. This has been adopted accross various sports that have a degree of subjectivity in awarding points. The only way you can add more refs would in VAR. So when there is a subjective decision which happens on fouls, the var should compose of atleast 3 refs all looking at the foul independently and they all should arrive at a decision if it is foul or not independently. They should then communicate that lets 2/3 refs think this is a foul to the on field ref and then the on field ref should look at the replays. The decision should be left to the on field ref then. Now it becomes a shared decision. This lowers subjectivity a lot more than just having 1 Var and 1 ref.

Two on field refs.

First of all, it would be important to note that people judge refereeing decisions based on previous ones. Any push to consistency would result in uproar from fans, pundits, coaches and players because of previous calls. Historically, this has caused referees to back down on issues they’ve flagged for emphasis at the beginning of the season. I don’t think the FA or PGMOL has the spine to push through.

That being said, sports with more contact(and more complex forms of contract) have more objective rules. I absolutely think you could make the rules more objective. But I also think the tinkering of rules needed to come to the right definitions would take multiple iterations(years). With plenty of uproar during the process.

The problem with technology used to check subjective laws is that slowing the speed down can change your perception of force and intent. It can create an additional problem.

You can have intent taken into account in a more objective system, it just can’t be the defining aspect. Say you want to make a checklist for what is required for a red card: 1. Late(after ball has left possession of player) 2. From behind 3. High(ankle or above) 4. Studs up 5. Intent. (yes, I know you could add some more, but this is just a quick example). You could make a red card require 4 of the 5. So if 1 is missing, but the referee believes there was malicious intent, they can take it into consideration.

I’d also add you could standardize how many minor fouls = a yellow card. Say you pick 3, no one can complain when they pick up a yellow for a silly 3rd foul if it is applied consistently. Obviously I’m not the man for the job, but I do honestly believe that the subjectivity of the laws themselves is a major reason for inconsistency in refereeing.

Fouls that didn’t directly interfere with a goal shouldn’t directly lead to a chance on goal AND should punish defensive sloppiness. For instance one on one with keeper, keeper takes out striker that’s in on goal, moving towards goal(not around the keeper) should be straight red and penalty. Handballs akin to Suarez against Ghana straight red penalty

Handball’s on crosses should be indirect free kicks and yellows for the defenders Fouls not on shots should be yellows and indirect free kicks from spot of foul

Lastly, retrospective yellow cards for simulation.

That’s how you fix this over abundance of crap pens and diving.

Put player in mediaeval style knight armor with sensor that detect various parameter along with laser detection system in the whole stadium to determine specific localized coordinate at all time with super-computer analyzing all movement of player and ball. Offside? computer can produced still image with laser precision and each player suit provide the coordinate so we know where each player really is. no need to draw line whatsover. foul? the suit can detect the motion and speed of the player who commit foul and the impact and contact point straight away. Heck, it can even produce x-ray image instantly. No need for referee at all. If foul is given, the suit will take charge of the player body and when they move to proper position will the free kick taker allowed to move. Any hand being positioned in ball flight path will automatically moved away accordingly, so no more concept of handball, thus no more debate on incidental or intentional handball. Heck, the coach can now control the player suit like fifa. Done.

You literally can’t remove subjectivity from sport. It’s not the rules it’s the nature of the game.

You can never entirely remove subjectivity because it will always feature in things like the degree of force and dangerousness of a challenge.

One thing would be in offside where you could say that only a player that touches the ball can be offside (but this would potentially lead to tactics like people standing right in front of the goalkeeper to block his view).

You could remove subjectivity from handball by simply saying that any contact with the hand or arm was always handball. Again that might have some unintended consequences but at least it would be simple and consistent.