Has VAR improved football?
The relationship between VAR and football has been one of controversy ever since its introduction to the round leather in a friendly match between Italy and France in 2016. Premier League clubs voted for the introduction of VAR in 2018 and kicked off the 2019/2020 season with VAR and ever since then it has been a rollercoaster.
If you’re a football fan, you probably already know what VAR is. You have probably screamed at your screen or complained about the VAR at some point. VAR, an abbreviation for Video Assistant Referee checks the decision of the on-field referee for errors and makes sure they’re correct. It’s essentially another referee outside the field that uses cameras at different angles to look at the situation on the field and make sure the on-field referee makes the right call.
The Premier League claims that most fans are in support of VAR and that its application has led to a general improvement in decision-making. The latest Premier League statistics show that before VAR, 82% of refereeing decisions were correct and after VAR 96% of decisions are correct. “VAR is and remains a very effective tool in supporting the match officials on the pitch” said Tony Scholes, the premier league’s chief football officer.
VAR can be applied in almost all decisions. VAR can be used to decide whether a goal is to be given or not, whether a foul happened or not, whether a player was offside or on-side and even whether a penalty is to be given or a free-kick depending on where the foul/offence took place.
As you can probably infer from all its functions and name, the purpose of VAR is to assist referees make better and more accurate decisions and improve the overall quality of the game. So, the question now is; why has something that was intended to clarify become the source of so much controversy and why does it seem like the stats don’t translate to real life? And the answer is simple; lack of uniformity in its application and errors.
There have been 20 VAR errors so far but the Premier League says 17 of them occurred when VAR didn’t intervene when it should have. There have been three wrong decisions so far when VAR has intervened according to the Key Match Incidents (KMI) panel, one of which was when Luiz Diaz’s goal for Liverpool was disallowed for offside against Tottenham. The blunder was very obvious to even fans at home and match officials armed with the latest technology should not be making that kind of error under any circumstance. That’s exactly why VAR was introduced and it failed.
In 17 instances this season, VAR has failed to interfere when it should have and that led to an error. This makes it unfair if VAR does intervene in similar cases in other matches and reduces the uniformity from the decisions taken across different games in the league.
Every club in the Premier League has had their own fair share of negative and positive experiences with VAR. It gets so bad sometimes that fans accuse the VAR and referee of being bought or having an agenda against their team. VAR makes mistakes; too many mistakes at this point for something that was supposed to reduce mistakes.
The fact that VAR cannot overturn the on-field referee’s decision adds an extra source of inaccurate decisions to the game. The VAR being under human control reduces its efficiency and ability to point out errors and aid correct decision-making.
Sometimes, the VAR picks up an obvious error but it may not be considered by the on-field referee. The buck still stops at the on-field referees table and he can either choose to ignore or accept the VAR’s findings. This essentially renders the VAR useless in those situations.
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE PROBLEM?
The problem is not VAR itself but the way it is applied and decisions are taken. Officials of the just concluded AFCON 2023 were lauded for their excellent officiating and exemplary application of VAR in their decision-making. This goes to prove that when used correctly, VAR can achieve what it was intended for and improve the game.
The problem lies in the referees’ application of the technology and the seeming absence of uniformity in decision-making; this is the source of the controversy. Where one referee applies the VAR and makes one decision, another referee may decide to ignore the VAR and double down on his decision in a similar situation even when those decisions can change the direction and even sometimes the outcome of the game. The lack of uniformity can still be traced back to the relative lack of standardization regarding the use of VAR.
To answer the question about whether VAR has improved Premier League and football in general, I would say yes but there is a lot of room for improvement. The answer would depend on the location and the referees using the technology. It definitely improved African football as evidenced by the AFCON but the Premier League is a whole different story with complaints about VAR coming in almost every week. While its application has improved the accuracy of decisions, uniformity of decisions across different matches and with different referees has not been improved.
The technology itself has the potential to improve the game if it can be applied correctly and I don’t think the Premier League is quite there yet. We have no choice but to push for improvement in the application of VAR. It’s here to stay but if we can somehow find a way around the problems with its application, it can only improve the game further.