Blog 23:What is wrong with VAR?
When the video
assistant referee (VAR) was first introduced in football a few years ago, the general
feeling about the new technological implementation was positive on the overall.
The introduction of technologies in world football came in to prevent crucial refereeing
mistakes that may have changed the course of high profile matches. So both goal
line technology and VAR were called upon to act and to get rid of the game of high
profile errors and to ensure that Jose Mourinho doesn’t sit out yet another press
conference, complaining and yelling about the wrong decisions made by the referee.
But football has always been a game of the heart and the never ending offside
calls and reviews proves that technology might just be taking the nail biting fun
out of the game.
It’s not like VAR and goal line technologies have been totally
useless. There have been plenty of instances where VAR manages to spot a dive in
the penalty box after the review system revealed a striker had faked the contact
from defenders. There’s nothing worse than having a goal scored and seeing it disallowed,
only to see your team lose the match because the referee thought the ball had not
crossed the goal line, hence goal line technology was super important. However,
what we have instead appears to be a system that needs a lot of rethinking in terms
of its implementations. In general, having the game stopped for almost 10-15 minutes
can totally suck the life out of the game, and this is exactly what the fans across
the world have complained about. A survey in the UK found that 51% of the football
fans still think that the technology has done badly, and a larger 63% believe that
VAR has made the game much less enjoyable.
It is all of these incidents taken together that proves that technology in every field is not necessarily a saviour. In football, the technological applications in the sport are still haphazard. VAR offside decisions often judge a forward offside for a stray finger or the tip of their boot being a few centimetres ahead of the last defender – a move that would have always been allowed as on-side as the player would have been deemed level otherwise. Instead, the world of football is stuck with numerous grudges of VAR and goal-line technologies sapping all the fun out of the last-minute, nerve-wrecking thrill that is football.
As with every technology, VAR and goal-line technologies too should get better regulations and implementation rules eventually. Until then, technology in a sport of heart is as big a mismatch as pineapple on a pizza. You may still agree with it, but the principles behind it still need work.
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