Is VAR a good or a bad thing?
VAR good or bad? A look at the controversial VAR system.
Is VAR good or bad?
With more and more leagues deciding to move to a Video Assistant Referee system, there’s recently been a lot more debate about the subject. It was previously argued and accepted that a movement towards more VAR was good for the game, and would iron out the majority of refereeing mistakes. But is this really the case? Now that we’ve seen more of VAR in action that seems less clear than ever. Is VAR really a good thing or not? In this article, we’re going to have a look at some of the issues as well as a thorough evaluation of the pros and cons.
What is VAR?
Before we look at the good and bad of VAR, here’s a little recap for those who aren’t sure what it is. If you don’t know about VAR yet, have you been following football recently? Instead of all decisions being made on the field by the referee and assistants in real time, any major decisions are reviewed by a team of referees in a remote location, with the aid of replays and multiple camera angles. These decisions are then referred back to the referee where he can alter his decision, sometimes after checking a screen himself. To know more you can visit 13wins.com for in-depth details. VAR is only intended to be used for major game-changing decisions like penalties, red cards, goals and offsides. VAR will be used in the EPL for the first time next season. The aim of VAR is to get rid of refereeing mistakes, but has it done so? And even if it has, is it worth it? Let’s have a look.
What are the benefits of VAR?
- More accurate decisions While not every decision can be made with 100% accuracy even with the aid of VAR, it helps get more of them right. That can’t really be debated. If your team loses to a goal that should have been disallowed for a foul and VAR correctly gets the goal struck off, you should obviously appreciate the decision. That’s the main aim of VAR, to be more accurate and get more decisions right.
- Fewer arguments A consequence of getting more decisions right should mean that there are fewer arguments. Both on the field and off it. As we’ll see, debate hasn’t stopped completely. But you can’t really argue as much about offsides that have been factually shown to be offside, and other similar decisions.
- Better discipline Not only should there be fewer arguments on the field, cleaning up play—but players should also be less inclined to make risky tackles or other foul play that could see it being reviewed and get them sent off.
- More drama While delays can be seen as an issue, those extra few seconds of wait in a big match while the referee checks the replay for a penalty does add a lot more drama to those big moments.
What are the drawbacks of VAR?
- It’s not perfect While it might get a lot more decisions right, VAR still doesn’t get them all right. League officials will have to decide if having a few more correct decisions makes up for the other drawbacks we’ll look at in the following points.
- It slows the game down One major issue with VAR is how much it slows the game down. Sometimes, there are 5-minute stops in play or more as referees check the screen multiple times. This can see injury time go up towards ten minutes, which sometimes doesn’t even seem enough. This is probably one of the biggest drawbacks to VAR, in that it interrupts the flow of the game. People who are against VAR could see this as a backdoor towards advert breaks during each half, like in some American sports.
- Some decisions don’t feel “right” Even though VAR can clearly show if a player was offside or not to the letter of the law, this sometimes doesn’t feel right when it was literally only an inch of the attacking player that was ahead of the last defender. Similarly, some handballs, while following the laws of the game, simply don’t feel “right” when compared with what was allowed to go on before.
- It doesn’t solve everything As we’ve seen from leagues and competitions that use VAR already, there’s still plenty of subjectivity involved. Unlike offside, it’s still down to a person or group of people’s opinion as to whether a foul in the box was a foul or not. While replays help, it’s still subjective. This can be even more frustrating when you believe an official has made a mistake even with the help of a replay, as opposed to one made in real time.
- Not everyone has access to it VAR creates a discrepancy between different leagues and competitions in the same country, or even different matches. The playing field is no longer level and the wealthier leagues have access to a level of technology others don’t.
- Assistant referees are becoming obsolete While they’re still running the touchline for now, how long will this go on for? Many assistant referees might see themselves becoming obsolete as nearly every offside decision is referred to VAR.
- The offside injury problem Currently, linesmen have been told to keep their flag down for offside in case the player was onside. This doesn’t really make much sense when they clearly know the player was offside but keep their flag down, and could lead to an injury in the subsequent period of play that would not have happened if play was stopped at the first moment the linesman knew the goal was offside.
How to improve VAR
Hopefully technology can come up with a way to spot an offside automatically. Another step would be to remove having to have the referee check for decisions the people in the VAR room have already overruled. Referees are reluctant to give up this level of power, but if the VAR officials have already spotted a mistake, they could simply overrule the referee to save delays in the game.
VAR is probably here to stay, but is it a good thing? That remains to be seen.