Once upon a time we didn’t have video replays to help referees. We relied upon their expert judgement to manage a game of football. Sure, they got decisions wrong, sometimes badly wrong, and naturally they favoured certain teams. But it wasn’t their fault, the atmosphere was intimidating, the pressure relentless, and besides if the big club got a late penalty to win the game, well, they had been the better team, right? They deserved to win, right?

All of this was great if you happened to support the big team that won all the time. It was a little less enjoyable if it was your team that kept getting shafted. In any case the argument was that ‘these things even them out over a season, which might be the biggest bullshit line uttered by commentators and pundits ever. Ask any football manager if the decisions even themselves out. Like fuck they do! It’s not a game of probability.

After years of technology being available FIFA finally decided enough was enough and brought in video assistant referees (VAR) for the 2018 World Cup™. ‘Refs needed help so why not help them as much as we can’ was the cry – I believe there were other reasons too [see my piece on sports integrity].

In fact, FIFA had already dealt with considerable controversy at the 2002 World Cup™ in South Korea. The joint host nation benefitting from some extraordinary refereeing decisions to knock out both Italy and Spain on their way to the semi-finals. One of the referees in question, Byron Moreno from Ecuador, was subsequently found to have been corrupt and banned for 20 matches, in what appeared to be a complicated career (although no evidence was found of wrongdoing at the World Cup™!). Oh and he also got done for smuggling heroin…seriously.

Has it worked?

The million dollar question is, has it been successful? There are two divergent answers to this, and both are correct. Although let us caveat the question with the fact that implementation of VAR has not been uniform across leagues and competitions.

The very first international match with VAR was a friendly between France and Spain. The score was 1-1, without VAR it would have been 0-2. Immediately, VAR changed the result of a match. As someone that wants the best team to win, and I mean that in the sense that the team that deserves to win should win, I was pleased with the outcome. Spain hadn’t deserved to win, and they didn’t.

I believe that the following World Cup™ was enhanced by the use of VAR and every competition since has benefitted from its introduction. It ensures that the best team, the team that deserves to win, usually does. It has made it more difficult for players to cheat; to dive to win penalties, to pull and push their opponent, and to commit nasty off the ball fouls. Player behaviour seems to have improved, at least concerning the dark arts of the game. Sergio Ramos may have had a very different career had VAR been used a decade earlier.

Interestingly, Liverpool FC should be the biggest proponent of the technology given that their history might have been very different had it been introduced earlier. In the 2018 Champions League final, our pal Sergio Ramos got away with two terrible fouls that swung the game Real Madrid’s way.

The first might not have been overturned with VAR, his foul on Mohammed Salah, which forced the Egyptian from the field, was contentious and may not have met the threshold for review.

However, the second, a clearly intentional elbow on Goalkeeper Lorius Karius, was a straight red card; surprise, surprise Sergio. And this probably led to a bizarre error by Karius a few moments later which led to the opening goal. It also seems to have destroyed Karius’ confidence and his career. Arguably, had that gone in Liverpool’s favour they would likely have won the match.

Secondly, had the English Premier League had VAR in 2018-19 season Liverpool would have been champions of England and not Manchester City. An incorrectly ruled out offside goal at Arsenal could have altered the final result. As could a second incident against Manchester City.

A reckless Vincent Kompany tackle should have seen the Manchester City Captain sent off, for not one but two offences. An obvious clear goal scoring opportunity and a terrible tackle; a violent scissor tackle, two feet off the ground, the whole gamut. No doubt about it, it was a red card tackle. The only thing is would VAR have overruled the referee on this occasion? Unfortunately, the answer to that appears to be no.

I hate to labour the point, and just to confirm that I am not in fact a Liverpool supporter, but they have really copped the raw end of the VAR stick. Perhaps the most ridiculous non-use of VAR was during the Everton v Liverpool match during the 2020/21 season.

Liverpool had a corner and the ball fell to star defender Virgil van Dijk. As Big Virg pulled his leg back to drive the ball towards goal Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford threw himself, legs first, at Virg’s knees. He blocked the shot. He destroyed Van Dijk’s knee putting the Dutchman out of the game for nine months with a serious knee injury.

It was a disgracefully dangerous tackle. Everyone saw it. Everyone knew it. Except the referee and the VAR officials. Perhaps we could excuse the ref Michael Oliver for missing the blatant dangerous foul on the edge of the six yard box, cause why would the ref be watching that part of the field?

But how the actual fuck could you not see this on the replay? Well according to the officials they never even looked at it! They were busy looking at a potential offside. It’s like a cop focusing on the beggar while the bank behind him gets robbed It was so outrageously bad that I believe the officials should have been kicked out of the sport forever.

Critics of VAR homed in on one aspect; the soul of football had been stripped away by a pitch side monitor and room hidden in a secret location. When the ball had hit the net one didn’t know if it would be a goal or not. Fans in the ground didn’t know what was happening and the emotion of the game was being drained. No one seemed to care if a goal was legitimate or not, just that the emotion was affected. Things even out they claimed! There’s the horseshit again.

Even the players initially seemed opposed to it, mainly because they didn’t seem to be able to get away with their incessant cheating; forwards diving, defenders pulling shirts, midfielders committing professional fouls.

What is interesting is they now seem to revel in it. Any time a decision doesn’t go their way they are straight to the ref to ask for a review. And most of the time the players are right, after all anyone that has played football at any level knows what a foul is, knows when someone has done something wrong, and that is why there has always been frustration with referees. We know, so why don’t you? That criticism seems to have abated as fans, pundits, and players alike have got used to the system. It’s here and it will stay. However….

A Clear and Obvious Problem

There is clearly an issue, particularly in England. In order to keep the emotion and flow of play – although the ball is usually in play for less than 60 minutes – the English Premier League decided to adopt a double headed interpretative monster. Not only would they not use the pitch side monitors, to speed up the game, but the VAR referee would be used to review incidents and make decisions. With one caveat, that any decision by the VAR official had to be a ‘clear and obvious’ error by the on field referee. No problem, right? Yeah, not for me Clive.

What the English introduction of VAR has shown is that referees are human, and not in the good humanity way. What it has confirmed is that not only are referees generally incompetent, which we have always known, but that they are stubborn, they appear to operate some form of hierarchical clique, and they have massive egos.

The Curious case of the National Football League

The NFL has operated a video review system for years. While there is far more scope in the NFL system for reviews, due to the stoppages in play and how the game is structured, many of the problems faced in England have been foreshadowed in America.

Like English football, the NFL operates a ‘clear and obvious’ guideline to overrule an on-field decision. And for the most part this works; however, incompetent officials still make bogus calls that are difficult to overturn because of this guidance, despite everyone watching knowing what the decision should be. Although, like football, not all decisions are reviewable, and it is this issue which identifies a glaring problem with referees and video replay. Egos!

In the US system coaches have a number of plays that they can challenge, lose the call, lose the challenge. Additionally, at the end of each half the review of plays is made by a central team, and all scoring plays are automatically reviewed. One problem is that most of the play takes place outside those times and parameters, meaning that most calls, just like football, are not reviewable.

Following a grossly, some even claim clearly contrived decision – yes, implying the refs made a decision for reasons other than the integrity of the game – in the National Football Conference Championship match between the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams in 2019, the decision review system was changed. The outrageous non-call on a clear pass interference penalty, which ultimately decided the outcome of the game in the LA Rams favour, led the NFL to make the previously non-reviewable pass interference play a now challengeable play, that is, coaches from each team could now challenge that specific type of play. The problem was that just hurt the feelings of the refs. So, what happened?

Anyone that watches any code of football knows that fouls are by their very nature hugely subjective. There are some that are obvious, although even then refs seem to get them wrong a significant percentage of time. The rest are, at best, inconsistently applied across the sport. These nuances have meant that virtually no challenged pass interference calls were overturned the following season. And the reason appears perfectly clear. Refs don’t like the rule change and won’t abide by it. The solution to this was to simply revert to the old ways. Pass interference would be no longer reviewable. The refs won.

Back to the VAR

The issue with VAR in England – and to a lesser degree elsewhere – is that refs are ego maniacs. Now in their defence, running around in front of 80,000 fans screaming abuse at you, and many millions more watching on TV, probably requires a certain amount of ‘confidence’ and belief in your infallibility.

Additionally, having some upstart ref in the VAR room telling you that you were wrong isn’t going to wash with experienced refs. And that is a clear and obvious problem. There appears to be a pattern of sorts when the experience level of the refs on the field and in the VAR room are out of step. Experience on field, inexperienced VAR: no overturned decisions. Inexperience on-field, experienced VAR: overturned decisions.

But, perhaps the most compelling issue that the use of video replay has shown across the NFL and football is that refs are generally, really, really, shit. They get an enormous amount of key decisions wrong even with the replay system. Listen, no one really criticises refs too much when they get difficult decisions wrong in what is a very fast moving environment – and that is the argument of the naysayers, just get on with it – the issue is when they can clearly see what the right decision should be in a slow motion replay, and they still get it wrong. What answer you now oh great official?

Red Card to VAR?

Maybe it is time to send VAR off into the sunset? To allow referees to go back into their self-protected little world of incompetence and arrogance?

Not so fast boyo. You see the problem isn’t VAR, it is the referees. VAR was brought in to assist refs in making the right decisions, to make sure that the team that deserved to win did, to remove cheating, and make football a purer sport, one that it at least professed to be once upon a time.

And it has. I think it is clear that overt cheating is beginning to fade, games and competitions are being won by those that play within the rules. Fair goals are in, unfair are out. All good, except where the refs refuse to play ball.

The problem with VAR is the refs, it hasn’t helped them, rather it has shone a huge great light upon their egos and incompetence. The only person that can tell an egomaniac that they are wrong, is, well, that very same egomaniac. There was one reason VAR worked at the World Cup: pitch side monitors.

To all the VAR naysayers I ask this: do you want games decided by incompetent officials and cheating players? If so, let’s get rid of VAR. let’s go backwards to a time of cheating and undeserved champions. If not then shut up and force refs to lift their game, to admit their humanity and fallibility. If we need to force them to use pitch side monitors, then so be it. If it pisses off Sergio Ramos it must be worth it, no?