Six-point plan to end blunders and fix football's VAR farce

Teething problems were inevitable, but after a string of errors a new approach is needed

- Malik Ouzia

VAR controversy is nothing new: debate over decisions has raged ever since its introduction to the Premier League in 2019, just as it did for the decades prior, when referees were making calls without assistance from Stockley Park.

This season, though, frustration has reached a new high, the perception that far from having ironed out its early wrinkles, VAR is getting worse, amid a spate of high-profile blunders.

VAR will never be perfect, since it ultimately relies on subjective interpretation of the game’s laws and is prone to human error. It is surely, though, here to stay, so here is our sixpoint plan to produce more consistent and reliable decisions, eradicate outright clangers, speed up the process and improve fans’ experience.

THE NO-BRAINER

Semi-automated offside technology is available, working well in other competitions, and would speed up the one (mostly) objective aspect of VAR’s remit, while avoiding some of its most embarrassing gaffes, most notably Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal for Liverpool at Tottenham.

The release of VAR audio in the Premier League’s Mic’d Up programme has also highlighted how much other decisions, like for penalties and red cards, could be sped up if officials did not also have to check manually for offsides elsewhere in the play.

CLEAR AND OBVIOUS WHAT?

Has a tin ever been less descriptive of its contents? Nothing has muddied the VAR picture quite so much as the question of how clear ‘clear’ must be, while one man’s ‘obvious’ has time and again proven to be another man’s absurd.