BOSSES: JUST BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH VAR

YOU don’t need an investigation to work out where VAR is going wrong. The problems are obvious.

Firstly, the handball regulations.

Who in their right mind thought it was acceptable to have one rule for defenders and a far harsher one for attackers?

Irrespective of the impact on entertainment, the concept is fundamentally unsporting. One way or the other, both offences must be treated the same way. Correcting that would meet universal approval and seems an inevitable first step on VAR’s rocky road to redemption.

Secondly, offsides. VAR was invented to spot offences missed, not things the referee couldn’t be expected to see in the first place.

Yes, offside, is offside. But VAR slows replays down to 50 frames a second, far faster than the human brain can process information. To time a run or spot an offside with that degree of accuracy, you’d need to see the world like Neo from the Matrix.

It’s absurd, unfair and robs the game of goals. Wouldn’t it be better to program VAR to implement a minimum distance – say 30cm – that an attacker must be beyond the last defender for a flag to be raised? It’s a simple fix, and retains objectivity.

Of course, criticism is a healthy part of development. The Premier League implemented VAR fully expecting a season of glitches and outrage. As any software developer will attest, it is only through use that errors can be spotted and fixed.

For the Championship, meanwhile, it is a cautionary tale to all those wronged managers who agitate for VAR here and now. By waiting for an enhanced version of the system, the EFL is – for once – getting the fat end of the wedge.