VAR will not be a perfect solution, warns Burrows

MOTHERWELL chief executive Alan Burrows has welcomed the Premiership’s decision to implement the Video Assistant Referee next season but warns that there will be teething problems when it is introduced at the end of the year.

He concedes that VAR officials in Scotland will not enjoy the number of camera angles available to their colleagues in England.

VAR, which has been in operation down south since 2019/20, will start in Scotland once the World Cup finals in Qatar have come to an end.

All 12 Premiership clubs have now been visited by technicians, selecting the best vantage points and preparing for the installation of cameras but, lacking the lucrative broadcast contracts which have skewed the financial advantages of the Premier League, it will be a reduced form of VAR which is deployed here compared to the one down south.

Matches which are broadcast live on Sky (usually involving Celtic, Rangers or both) will have 14 cameras which the officials allocated to that fixture can refer to when it comes to disputed decisions.

At the other games, however, there will be only six — or, sometimes, eight — cameras present to help officials on and off the park.

‘There will be one in line with each 18-yard box, which should help with offside calls,’ said Burrows. ‘We’ve already had people round at Fir Park, checking where the other cameras should go but, with only six, it may be that those angles are sometimes inconclusive and fans need to understand that.

‘However, the probability clearly is that there will be more chance of offences and infringements being spotted. VAR was never meant to be the silver bullet which will make everything perfect but the suggestion is that it will improve referees’ success rate with decisions from 92 per cent to 99 per cent, so that’s got to be worth trying.

‘I’m not saying this is an inferior version of VAR because it will make our game better. There’s so much money riding on outcomes nowadays that these calls have to be the right ones.’

Burrows, though, stressed that the SPFL and the SFA must work out how to prevent unnecessary tension by finding a way to alert spectators inside the stadium to what is happening whenever play is halted to allow a VAR check to take place.

‘We’ve all seen English games where the notice “VAR check: possible penalty” or offside or whatever is displayed on the giant screens inside the stadium, but not all of our clubs have one of those. For example, we only have an electronic scoreboard,’ he said.

‘The supporters who pay to get into the matches are the most important people of all so we must find a way to make everyone who comes along aware of what is going on as it happens.

‘I know there have been complaints since VAR was first used down south but I’m convinced it will get better.’