“Constant Controversy in VAR”
It’s fair to say on the topic of VAR for football fans, that you either love it or you hate it. Often, it’s never even based on VAR as an actual subject, but the way in which the decision goes as a result of its use. Much as Gary O’Neil expressed passionately after his Wolves side saw defeat against Fulham, due to decisions he saw as wrong and VAR directly at fault for. The Wolverhampton Wanderers head coach shared his thoughts on VAR in an interview to Sky Sports, “Maybe tonight has finally turned me against VAR”, he continued, "The impact that you are having on my reputation, and the club and people's livelihoods is massive. We should be able to talk about the game and not decisions, but unfortunately, we can't.”
The Video Assistant Referee was introduced to help determine the correct outcome of refereeing decisions, annihilating the possibility for error created by the imperfections of the human eye. VAR was introduced as a support and backup for the referee in case of mistakes, giving the referee and his officiating team some clarity and preventing referees from becoming the subjects of scrutiny from fans, teams and pundits post to errors made by innocent misjudgement. Such as from events seen in the past, including the infamous “Hand of God” incident involving Diego Maradona against England in the World Cup quarter-final of 1986.
Prior to the introduction of VAR, football was becoming increasingly irritating to fans watching online. With the technology available, the ability to watch replays and critique decisions and spot mistakes meant football fans and teams were constantly feeling they were subjects of injustice, having game changing decisions not go their way.
VARs intended purpose was to illuminate any errors and amend them, however slightly typical of footballing society, fans managed to find negatives of this new technology and become critical of this new “development”. VAR has been faced with criticisms ever since its introduction, such as in 2021 when Jamie Redknapp stated on Sky Sports, “What is happening to our game?!”, after West Ham’s Czechoslovakian midfielder, Tomas Soucek was sent off after an entirely unintentional arm to face of a Fulham player who jumped the floor with the acting skills of a primary school child.
However, it has been recently that VARs controversy has really come to light. Multiple times within the 2023-24 season has the technology introduced to eliminate mistakes, made clear and obvious errors, despite professional officials working behind this technology. So, what is it that’s causing so many cases for controversy week after week? Has this technology really benefitted the game of football? From wrongful offsides disallowing goals for Liverpool, to dismissed dives causing worry in Wolverhampton, to uninfluential handballs causing havoc in Paris, can VAR ever be without its faults?
