The tremendous promise of Video Assistant Referees as a magic bullet for controversy was a misguided prediction, as demonstrated by the events of the last four years. Because of these officials’ and the rules’ current implementation of VAR, the game’s essence is severely harmed.

The Chief Football Officer of the Premier League, Tony Scholes, acknowledged that Video Assistant Refereeing is “nowhere near good enough” in its current implementation. This is at least a first step in improving something that has manifestly become a distraction and detract from the Beautiful Game.

This kind of system will never be flawless, but there’s no denying that, especially in the Premier League, VAR is a mess. Disputes over calls made during games from a bunker that’s frequently hundreds of miles away from the action take centre stage in the aftermath of games rather than the actual play.

The Premier League’s use of VAR is beset by widespread inconsistent rule application—not to mention how murky some of those rules have become due to the International FA Board’s (Ifab) persistent meddling—occasionally absurd rulings, legitimate charges of excessive officiating, a culture of “mates club” refereeing where officials are reluctant to overrule one another, and a growing sense among supporters of clubs outside the “Big Six” cartel of unchecked bias, whether conscious or not.

We are aware of the circumstances leading up to the Premier League’s 2019 use of VAR. An era of forensic analysis of every facet of the game was ushered in by the rise in popularity of England’s premier league, the growing emphasis on and coverage of football in general, and the introduction of super slo-mo analysis by in-studio analysts.

The most important of them, of course, were the contentious calls made by referees and the want to somehow eliminate the chance that human mistake might ever affect or determine a match, often with dire consequences in a sport where crucial outcomes are becoming increasingly valuable with every passing decade. As European qualification and championships can be decided by narrow margins, there was a push to establish a system of backup referees that would, so we were told, guarantee that major errors in officiating wouldn’t occur.

As we’ve seen, the vision and reality are completely different. Particularly Evertonians are all too familiar with how the process has been twisted by incompetence, inconsistent and unpredictable play, and, yes, the unavoidable perception that VAR is just another tool used to benefit the big guys. They yell, “Organised match fixing!”

Any supporter of a team that has participated in the Premier League throughout the previous four seasons can undoubtedly recall a number of explosive moments and VAR gaffes that have left a lasting impression. We Evertonians are quick to recall the ridiculous Rodri handball farce from February 2022 and the red card given to Allan against Newcastle only the month after. The penalty awarded to Brighton when Michael Keane inadvertently stepped on Aaron Connolly’s foot and Lee Mason, sitting in Stockley Park, decided it should be a penalty (a decision that swung the impetus of the game back in favour of the Seagulls who went on to win 3-2 and Marco Silva was denied a victory that might, at the very least, given him a stay of execution that season) also readily recall. There are, of course, a lot more examples, not to mention the two “double-yellow” incidents in this season’s Anfield derby that were exempt from VAR review due to existing regulations.

This week, Scholes claimed that this season, VAR officials are 96% accurate in determining the correct conclusion. However, this contradicts the belief held by supporters that the process’s influence on the game has peaked. It is true that perception shapes reality, which begs the question of whether the objective should be to follow the letter of the law with perfect precision.

The loss of referees’ ability to use common sense and officiate in accordance with the spirit of the game is one of the more depressing aspects of elite football’s descent into petty obsession with the details of every play and that meddling with many of the rules.

One criticism that comes up frequently in this column regarding VAR and razor-thin offside rulings is that, in adopting such an exact measurement method, football has entirely forgotten the original purpose of the rule, which was to stop strikers from loitering in the opposition goal, waiting for the ball to be played up to them.

Similar to this, the increasing tendency among VAR officials to scrutinise play sequences that result in goals, sometimes frame by frame, in an attempt to find a reason to disallow a goal or award a penalty, goes against both the letter and the spirit of the law and the widely held belief that mistakes are inevitable in sports, which dates back roughly 150 years in the professional game.

As if all of that wasn’t terrible enough, we’ve also noticed an increasing trend among on-field officials to defer to VAR for major calls rather than making them themselves. This is plainly problematic because the VAR is supposed to step in when a “clear and obvious” mistake is made. This means that an official cannot reverse a bad call that was never made, and it also allows the person sitting in Stockley Park an excessive amount of chance to “find” a reason to make a decision.

modifying the choice in any case.

All of this adds up to the big tragedy of video assistant refereeing: the degree to which it has eradicated the ultimate delight of football, which is the unplanned celebration of your team’s goal. It is extremely distressing that fans must suppress their emotions following a last-second equaliser, as Matt Jones recently detailed in a Liverpool Echo editorial.

Fans of clubs that have come up to the Premier League from the Championship spoke of the thrill of supporting their side without the fear of VAR ruining the fun in the game. That is, in essence, the strongest justification for doing away with VAR in all of its manifestations tomorrow. Enabling decision-making to be communicated to the masses won’t address the underlying issues if the decisions are flawed from the start.

Of course, it is possible to alter any of these procedures, methods, and presumptions, and if done so in a sensible manner, doing so would greatly ameliorate the already untenable position. Ultimately, the issue lies not so much in the technology itself, but rather in the way a generation of extremely critical English referees have applied it.

Eliminating slow-motion replays on the pitch-side monitor and requiring the official to base his decision on another look at what he saw (or missed) in real time would also greatly assist. Restoring the hegemony of the on-field referee and significantly raising the threshold for a VAR intervention would also be very helpful.

Regaining a greater respect for the spirit of football, in which the regulations exist to deter flagrant violations as well as to prevent blatant mistakes, would be another step in improving the appallingly bad state of affairs that has given rise to bias allegations and damaged public confidence in the referees.

The Premier League has so far opposed semi-automated offside, but it could provide another level of legitimacy if much thicker lines are used to give some leeway so that any “daylight” between them would designate offside. This would move us further away from the forensic drawing of lines, give the technology more room to make mistakes, reduce the amount of goals that are eliminated by such narrow margins, and lessen the feeling that supporters can no longer celebrate for fear that a goal won’t stand.

Once more, football wasn’t always flawless. Referees made mistakes, and it was thought that by utilising replays and adding additional technology, the amount of mistakes and bad calls could be decreased, if not completely eliminated.

This was a false prophecy, as the last four years’ worth of data demonstrate. Premier League football is suffering because of the severe flaws in VAR, both as implemented by these officials and as per the present guidelines. There is room for significant improvement, but nothing the FA and PGMOL have done so far instills confidence that all necessary steps will be followed to the extent necessary to restore confidence in the process and the unadulterated, unprompted delight that comes from scoring a goal. In fact, things have clearly become worse under Howard Webb.

For these reasons, VAR ought to be eliminated, but discussions over officiating and the best ways to lessen the effects of bad and incorrect calls will never end. Additionally, as long as technology is around—further developments in AI are undoubtedly on the horizon—the most influential players in the game will inevitably have a predisposition to utilise it to achieve an unattainable standard of perfection.

The powers that be will continue to fumble in the meanwhile. We’ll pay lip service to the necessity of making decisions more quickly. There may be steps taken to let spectators inside the stadium to know about judgements made by authorities on the same level as those watching on television, but again, this won’t really matter if the decisions are flawed.

While this is going on, the supporters, elite football, and the essence of the game will all suffer, and many of us will never stop hating the day that video assistant referees were invented.

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