Traditionalists will always resist change, which includes innovation in soccer too. I’ve personally spoken to fans of an older demographic who even dislike goal-line technology despite its accuracy. Their reasoning was that it’s not “proper” soccer.
You can imagine how those same people felt when the VAR system was introduced into soccer. Whether you view it as revolutionary or evolutionary depends on your thirst for the organic elements of the game.
There are supporters and complainants to the system, of course. Such drastic reform of officiating methods was always going to be a talking point. Nevertheless, it looks as though VAR is here to stay.
What is VAR?
VAR stands for Video Assistant Referee and is an additional official who uses instant replay technology to assess whether the decisions made by the on-field refereeing team were correct or incorrect.
VAR is often the term people label the technology with rather than the actual Video Assistant Referee who is watching the replays. It’s important to remember that there is a person, not a computer, reassessing those decisions.
The VAR is monitoring the game in its entirety but usually only comes into use if there’s suspicion that an incorrect on-field decision has been made or an incident has been missed.
The VAR will only intervene in incidents regarding goals, penalties, direct red cards, and mistaken identities.
Is VAR working: A look at the stats
The numbers don’t lie: Premier League referees were getting a surprisingly low 82% of important decisions right the year before the VAR system was introduced. The number in the VAR’s first season? A remarkably improved 94%.
Clearly, the VAR system does, in fact, work at getting more decisions correct than without it.
One of the many beauties of soccer is that it isn’t as ‘stop-start’ as other sports. This makes the length of time taken to reach any decision vital. The average amount of time the VAR takes when reviewing calls was 70 seconds. You can get away with that easier in the NFL than you can in soccer.
A huge gripe spectators have with the VAR checks halting the game for long periods, over three minutes in some instances, is simple: if the officials are using the barometer of “clear and obvious” to adjudge whether they can overturn an on-field decision, as they’ve been instructed to do, how could it possibly take so long to decide?
It’s either clear and obvious, which would be quick to assess, or it’s not clear and obvious, so there shouldn’t be enough evidence to overturn the call whatsoever.
Well, even if they got the time issue under control, there is the entertainment factor. A study conducted last year suggested that only roughly a quarter of soccer fans support the use of the VAR.
This feels like the most important statistic of all. Ultimately, sport is played for enjoyment. If it’s not a fun experience anymore, the average attendee will turn up less.
Unaccountability
When soccer fans switch on a game of rugby, they’ll audibly witness the referees conversing with the TMO (Television Match Official, rugby’s equivalent to the VAR). Similarly, in the NFL, the head official speaks to their audience, so everybody has an understanding of why a call was made.
You’d forgive soccer fans for their sense of envy, wishing they could get some sort of explanation from the referees in their sport. It’s something that Premier League chiefs have looked at but state that international rules currently stop them from having these during the game.
The VAR system has taken other steps to clarify things for fans: stating on big screens what the VAR is inspecting and who the possible offender is, but not how a decision has been made or why.
We understand the passion involved in soccer but is the reason for not having microphones attached to the referees because of the lack of respect shown towards them by the players?
It would be a shame if this is the reason we don’t hear what’s being said, and the verbal abuse officials receive speaks of a wider problem within the sport, but I understand this reasoning if it were the case, however. Yet this makes it difficult to fairly and wholly assess how the officials and the systems they use are performing.
This absence of public communication is probably a big reason why so many disapprove of having the VAR system in soccer too.
The tech benefits of VAR
When Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain handled the ball in his side’s penalty box in a 2014 Premier League game at Stamford Bridge, he could hardly have imagined that his teammate Kieran Gibbs would be the one receiving the red card.
But that’s what happened. Oxlade-Chamberlain appeared to explain to the referee that it was actually he who should be penalized, but the referee stuck to his decision, and off Gibbs went.
Thankfully, this bizarre circumstance couldn’t possibly happen in the VAR age. Although this wasn’t a common occurrence prior to VAR, such a simple administrative procedure should be straightforward.
It seems like Graham Poll had a similar issue of confusing people when he officiated Australia v Croatia.
On the biggest of stages, no less, Poll issued Croatian defender Josip Šimunić three yellow cards in the match, only brandishing the red card after the third yellow.
As sorry as we felt for Poll at the time, it doesn’t bode well for the sport that a supposed elite referee makes such a monumental error at soccer’s premier tournament.
Then there are the more sinister moments. I needn’t remind Irish fans of the 2010 World Cup play-offs, but it encapsulates exactly why VAR was probably inevitable and may have been what tipped the scales in favor of the technology being introduced.
With a penalty shootout looming after a brave Irish performance earned them a shock 1-0 lead, tying the aggregate to 1-1, a rather hopeful French free kick was drifted into Ireland’s penalty box in extra time.
France forward Thierry Henry knew that he couldn’t reach the ball legally given the bounce, and it should’ve strayed out for a goal-kick.
Instead, he stretched out his arm to control the ball with the palm of his hand before teeing up teammate William Gallas to score. It was an obvious infringement, and you’d be forgiven for assuming that you missed the whistle in all the stadium noise.
Yet, to the dismay of the men in green, no whistle arrived. Cue fury and frustration from the Irish corner, but it made no difference. France was going to the World Cup at Ireland’s expense, and calls for VAR became louder. A blatant act of deception that VAR would’ve cleared up in mere seconds.
Controversy: The Turincident
Normally, I don’t like to cherrypick one incident to portray a broader point, but this instance is particularly pertinent because of how recent and erroneous the decision was.
Juventus’ start to the Serie A season hadn’t been a particularly bright one, so when Arkadiusz Milik glanced home a 95th-minute winner against a relatively unfancied Salernitana side, jubilation ensued, and there was palpable relief around the Allianz Stadium.
Put the champagne on ice, though, because the VAR had spotted from the camera angles that the TV audience and the referees were shown Leonardo Bonucci interfered with the play and was offside. Case closed – the goal should not be awarded, and promptly, the referee signaled for offside. The scoreline remained 2-2, and Juventus were apoplectic; we would soon find out why.
Scandalously, an angle we didn’t see on TV initially, nor did the VAR officials, it would seem, showed a Salernitana player positioned near the corner taker clearly playing Bonucci and every other Juventus player onside, comfortably so. This Salernitana player was cut out of the VAR system’s view.
What on Earth happened? How did the VAR technology not show this angle? It was a simply terrible and baffling decision, especially when you consider that the assistant referee on the far side didn’t flag for offside! The VAR actively interfered and ultimately overturned what was initially a correct decision based on insufficient evidence.
Even after so many years of its application, the VAR and its system can produce a truly atrocious injustice.
The future of VAR
Just because we have the VAR system in place doesn’t mean that leagues will become static and not explore new innovations.
In fact, within trials, we see the introduction of semi-automated offside decisions. When an offside decision is being checked by the VAR, rather than any lines being drawn, an instantly rendered model of the game’s ongoings is generated for a higher degree of accuracy and better timing of when the ball left the passer’s foot.
The technology is astounding (although I’m not going to pretend I understand the science behind it). It should fix the problem of delayed stoppages for offsides because the VAR won’t be trying to draw the perfect line.
What else is being done, I hear you ask? Well, FIFA has stated that another aspiration of theirs is to make VAR affordable further down soccer league pyramids.
Yes, it’s ambitious, and you could forgive the more skeptical among us for reminding others of FIFA’s previous financial indiscretions, but if they are to be believed, this could be a big step towards modernizing the game for everybody, not just the elite.
The verdict: Is VAR working?
I believe that introducing the VAR system was well-intended, and it’s easy to forget how many people were calling for technology to come into the game when we were witnessing injustices.
Has it completely eradicated officiating mistakes? Demonstrably, it hasn’t, but there has undoubtedly been an improvement in accuracy.
The clamor should no longer be to rid VAR from the game; that seems to be a futile effort. Instead, influential voices in the game should brainstorm what improvements can be made to the VAR system for continuous improvement of the game we love.