Let me take you back to the introduction of VARs. Previously, the then President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini, were against any technology being used in football.
Blatter’s mind was changed by Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal against Germany at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which was a clear and obvious error. The technology favoured was a system being trialled in the Netherlands – VAR.
We were told not to expect 100% accuracy for every incident but it would deal with clearly incorrect decisions regarded as game changers, goals, penalty decisions, red card incidents and mistaken identity. The VAR would prompt the referee where any clear and obvious mistakes were made.
If we now look at the offside incident at the Liverpool v Wolves cup tie, where Wolves were denied a winning goal for alleged offside. I say alleged because television replays showed no suggestion of offside.
The real point, however, is the inordinate amount of time it took for the VAR to decide it was offside. What’s happened to clear and obvious?
I remember Howard Webb, who was commissioned to trial VAR at the MLS, saying at a talk in Canada, ‘Any error should jump off the page. If it took more than two looks at the video, it could not be ‘clear and obvious’.
I’ve never believed VAR to be accurate enough for offsides but it has other tasks. At the recent Brentford v Bournemouth Premier League match, the referee awarded a penalty to Brentford.
The television replay from another angle showed clearly that the Brentford player instigated the fall and the penalty decision should have been rescinded.
This was the sort of incident that VAR was supposed to correct, so why wasn’t this spotted on one of the VAR’s four screens and the referee informed?
The Premier League’s use of VAR’s has been disastrous. First they decided that referees would not use the monitor, leaving all queried decisions to the VAR, breaking the Law that says, ‘the referee’s decision regarding facts connected with play are final’.
This restriction was removed after intervention by FIFA. Also breaking the law was judging offside by whose toe was the nearest to the goal line. In the first season according to the PGMO figures, this resulted in 20 goals being incorrectly disallowed.
Howard Webb is now the PGMO Chief Refereeing Officer, so one of his priorities will be an improvement of the use of VAR’s. I believe he has already started making changes but for the good of the game they can’t come quick enough.
By Dick Sawdon Smith
