ACT NOW OR VAR WILL RUIN GAME
Key changes that would get video technology off its disrepute charge
IN ITS current form, VAR will not just kill the joy of football but it risks destroying the game itself.
Not a Premier League weekend goes by without anti-VAR chants from the stands amid agonising delays over prolonged reviews that leave spectators in the dark ahead of decisions that leave you wondering if there is much point in watching any more.
Yes, it is a new phenomenon. Yes, it needs time to bed in and improve. But it doesn’t seem to be getting better. It is getting worse.
Jonathan Moss, the VAR for Tottenham’s 1-1 draw with Sheffield United, spent nearly four minutes deciding that John Lundstram’s big toenail was offside at the point at which they think — but cannot know for certain — the ball was played. Had he been wearing a shoe size smaller, he would probably have been level.
This is not football. This i s not what makes t he Premier League the most watched in the world.
We do not want to scrap VAR. Not yet. The technology is there to do good and, in patches, the new system has helped right s o me obvious wrongs.
If it is implemented better, using common sense more often than the microscope, there is no reason why VAR cannot improve the game, rather than kill it.
So, The Mail on Sunday has put together a four-point plan to save VAR.
Referees must make use of the pitch-side monitor for key decisions. Not one on- field Premier League official has consulted it this season. Scrape the dust off, give the screen a wipe and look at it.
We admire PGMOL’s aim to use monitors as sparingly as possible to maintain the much-loved ‘pace and intensity of the Premier League’. But they might avoid the farcical scenes at the Women’s World Cup this summer.
The sight of players wandering around while the referee stands with his finger to his ear for three minutes does little for the pace and intensity of the game.
UEFA refs chief Roberto Rosetti told The Mail on Sunday he wants his referees in European competition to be ‘at the centre of the decision-making process – not the VAR’. To achieve that, the referee needs to see a move with his own eyes and not take another’s word for it. The
Premier League seems to be ignoring its own protocols, which say monitors would be used for off-theball i ncidents the referee has missed or when what they are told has happened does not tally with what he thinks he has seen. Isn’t that what happens every time a penalty or red card is overturned?
Chairmen are understood to be pushing for more use of the monitors at a meeting of Premier League clubs this week.
VAR cannot judge offsides as it does now. It cannot take 3min 47sec to draw tiny lines on players to determine that they are on the wrong side by millimetres.
Especially when the technology does not allow it. The Mail on Sunday showed earlier this season that the frame-rates of the VAR cameras are in insufficient to make offside calls by millimetres with any certainty.
Rosetti also said h e o n l y want s offsides to be overturned if they are clear. We p r o p o s e a ‘ linesman’s call’. T The maths tells us that any situation that shows an attacker offside by 15cm 1 or less is a reasonable enough grey area for the l i nesman’s decision to be final.
Critics may say this merely shifts where you put the magnifying glass but, right now, seeing goals chalked off by the length of armpit hairs does not feel right.
But it would give power back to t he l i nesmen who, under t he current system, are rendered almost redundant.
Then, improve communication with the fans inside the stadium, who currently have no idea what is going on.
Communication extends beyond that, too. Be more open with supporters. Acknowledge decisions t hat are i ncorrect, don’t j ust whisper t hem t o unfortunate Premier League clubs, as happened l ast week when Everton were quietly informed that Michael Keane should not have been penalised for accidentally standing on Aaron Connolly’s foot. Broadcast the discussion between the VAR and the referee. At present, such a move is forbidden by football’s lawmakers IFAB. Two months ago they said they had no plans to change, but t hey are holding another meeting in early December. If VAR is to succeed, they must grasp the netttle.
We considered time limits on reviews, as in American Football, and giving each manager a certain number of challenges, as in cricket. These both feel a step too far at present. The system should be able to come to the correct decisions, independently of manaagers asking for it, which would turn VAR into a tactic, rather than a pursuit of natural justice.
There is still hope. There is still time. But the authorities have to act now if they are to save the game.