If you ask a football fan about his say on VAR, he will tell you that VAR has done both harm and good. In this article, we will be discussing the impact of VAR, is it helping or taking the fun away.
During the earlier introduction of VAR in an international friendly between France and Italy in June 2016, football enthusiasts expected that an end has come to all the loopholes or mistakes during matches. And also, there’s a concern of prolonged duration in football games. But recently it appears that VAR is now doing more than expected and the question of the day is whether VAR is helping football or taking the fun away.
There are four major vital things that a VAR checks:
- Goals and offenses leading up to goals
- Penalty decisions and offense leading up to penalties
- All direct red card incidents
- All cases of mistaken identity
You would agree with me that VAR has helped to a reasonable extent but not in all of these four areas.
The Guardian concludes that VAR has been most productive for accurate decisions such as offside and mistaken identities. Subjective decisions such as penalties and disciplining of players have progressed much worse.
A proof of this can be traced back to a problem inconsistency at the 2018 World CUP where there was unclear interpretation of VAR rules. For instance, A game between Portugal and Iran in the group stage, Iran was awarded a penalty kick after a handball by Cedric Soares, but in the match between Nigeria and Argentina, VAR was overlooked after Marcos Rojo headed the ball to his hand.
VAR helping football
The perfect point is that players are now unable to con officials with pretense to win penalties as decisions can be checked, overturned/not given. This makes the fact that Almiron dived for Newcastle against arsenal all the more perplexing. Perplexing aside, sometimes, players con the referee by feigning injuries when replay shows there was little or no contact, and we can get rid; of this situation that brings the game down.
Referees do make an error such as being fooled by injuries/dives. Many times, do we see managers spending their time on post-match interviews and press conferences criticising a refereeing decision which cost them points. They cannot make a complaint if the correct calls were made and it was their players who were at fault, not even the officials. This is another unique situation where VAR helped.
VAR not helping football
“Spent two minutes celebrating, the joy then taken away. Then the other fans in jubilation for a non-goal,” Murphy added on talkSPORT.
Remembering those moments really touches the heart. Check out Manchester City’s late winning against spurs in the Champions League last season, and you will understand better. Players celebrating on the pitch and the coaching team jubilating on the other side. Went back to the halfway for kick-off only to discover it was for nothing. Remember how shocked this was.
At times, it took two minutes before a goal was finally reviewed as that of Wolves against Leicester in the Premier League. When there was a call for the VAR, they didn’t want to take the pace out but yet it took so long before the decision was made. This is a drawback as it reduces our anticipation for more.
The implementation of VAR has just started and is never going to be an instant success. We can see how it is still adapting even in the Champions League.
“We are learning as we go along, and we are constantly improving,” Riley, who heads up England’s elite refereeing body, PGMOL, told Sky Sports News.
“Out of the four-match rounds, there have been some outstanding examples where we have intervened. There have been six incidents where VAR has advised the referee, and we have got a better decision as a result.
VAR is going nowhere anytime soon, but its services will get better with time and the sooner all are headed to the point of view on VAR, the better. Football is too expensive nowadays to for bad decisions to be made by officials and also too entertaining to be paused by VAR reviews every minute, there must be equilibrium.
Football lovers don’t like change in the system only when it would benefit us, in the long run, can we say yes to it. We have got to embrace VAR and with time we probably will. Whether we like it or yes, it is here to stay. All we can do is to build up the system until it’s perfect. It is a big challenge.
What’s your thought on the use of VAR so far?
