Yeah, Rugby’s had a much better approach with TMO (it’a version of VAR) - basically if you’re watching on TV the director can switch the audio (and often does) to the ref conversation with the TMO and rest of the ref team.

I remember watching NFL a couple of times and thing the ref explanations were fantastic.

In football, referees generally have some kind of rationale for their decisions. Sometimes they are simply wrong (see the bad offside call in Juventus - Salernitana), but generally, explaining it and getting consensus with the rest of the ref team will carry the fans along with the refs’ logic. And if they’re regularly wrong, the exposure will make them either up their game, or change rules to make their application more realistic.

Absolutely. It looks like they’re talking about selected dialogue so far, which only adds another layer of mistrust if there’s a controversial incident and they don’t release the audio.

But at least, it’s a move in the right direction.