I'll start with the views of those that are entirely against VAR. Despite my suspicions that some football fans find themselves biased against VAR purely due to the fact that they dislike the idea of technology taking over in the world as a whole, many find their main argument against VAR being that it takes away 'human error'. The fact that many choose to use this as a disadvantage seems crazy to me. As much as I agree that having officials actually officiating on the pitch gives football a more human feel, I just think there's far too much riding on matches these days for decisions to be made incorrectly. It's all well and good conceding an offside goal in the last game of the season, costing you 11th place, however, it's a completely different story when this offside goal is the margin between a team staying in the league and potentially avoiding financial oblivion. There's too much money involved in football today to leave outcomes down to error or chance.
Over on the other side of the fence, you've got those who want VAR all over football, deciding virtually every aspect of officiating. I can sympathise with this viewpoint as in an ideal world, all games would be officiated perfectly, meaning that the outcome of a game is purely decided by skill. However, this is not where I would situate myself, I think we need to find a middle ground with VAR. In my opinion, VAR should be limited to decisions that are entirely black and white. A good example of this and how it has worked well is goal line technology. Goal line technology has completely removed any doubt of inaccuracies involved with giving a goal when the ball has possibly not completely crossed the line. There is no debate involved in this, we get a purely scientific answer and therefore it can be considered consistent. VAR needs to be used in the same way, so that we can confidently say that the outcome of the decision would be the same in any different circumstance, the element of opinion has been taken out of it. This would therefore mean that decisions that are up for debate (eg. a heavy tackle in midfield that could be a red card in one person's eyes and a harsh yellow in another's) are left up to the referee on the pitch.
Another point worth making is that I feel the quality of VAR needs to be improved. One thing I picked up on during the Man City vs Tottenham clash was that the video assistant referee wasn't actually shown the best angle of the decisive Llorente goal, where it looked like it struck his hand on the way. If TV cameras were able to pick up on this then I'm sure VAR can cover at least as many angles as they do. I do also think it may be worth looking at a possible appeal system to prevent players or managers constantly insisting on a review, thus slowing down the game. This would limit teams to only a few incorrect appeals each game and would prevent them from simply contesting everything in the hope that they get a decision through blind luck.
VAR is never going to be able to solve issues where the referee's own discretion is needed as every single person is different, however, it can be used in a positive way to make the game fairer. If football as a sport firmed up it's rules and and limited VAR to decisions that are cut and dry, the playing field would be levelled considerably. Therefore, in my opinion, this is the only way forward and without it, there will always been complaints.
Let us know what you think in the comments below!
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