March 3, 2018 will go down in history as the day that football began shifting away from everything that made the sport so special. This is the day that VAR (video assistant referee) technology was formally written into the Laws of the Game, as a means to reduce the amount of errors in decisions made by on-field referees, with the express intent of improving the game. In this respect, at least in the English Premier League, VAR has failed.
The use of VAR technology does have its benefits, of course. Video reviews for offside, handball, and other incidents on the pitch do often come to the right conclusion. When it works, VAR is swift, accurate, and helps to make football a fairer game. A room of appointed officials equipped with an array of screens and magic lines to meticulously scrutinise every moment of a football game: what could possibly go wrong?
A lot, actually. VAR is supposed to intervene when a clear and obvious error has been made by a match official, and advise them of the correct decision. Through the years, something has been lost in translation when it comes to ‘clear and obvious,’ though, with the offside rule in particular now being adjudged on the basis of a toenail here or there. In essence, VAR has become too involved and too methodical. The frequency with which VAR is called into play now, particularly in the English Premier League, is proving disruptive to the overall experience of the beautiful game. According to ESPN, there were 120 incidents of VAR intervention in the 2021/22 season, with 43 goals being disallowed across the league.
We watch football because we want to see goals, those most special of moments that cause entire stadiums to erupt in jubilation. VAR is slowly but surely sucking the joy out of those moments and will eventually lead to the death of the goal celebration altogether if things continue on this trajectory. We are now more than four years on from the introduction of the technology in football, and the innovative breakthrough that was supposed to improve the game has done very little to assuage the pain of a controversial decision going against your team. If anything, VAR has gone backwards in that respect, and now only serves to inflict more misery on players and supporters.