VAR is a blight on the Premier League
It’s not possible to eliminate the subjective element in a referee’s decision-making
This article is taken from the March 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
One of the advantages of supporting a team in the second tier of English football is that I don’t have to put up with VAR. For fans of Premier League clubs, VAR has gone someway to ruining the match day experience. Games are suddenly stopped and a referee summoned to a video monitor without the people in the stadium being any the wiser about what’s being checked.
So many goals have been ruled out due to some minor infraction of the rules that West Ham’s Michael Antonio has stopped celebrating when he scores. “I don’t want to be there doing a dance and the goal gets disallowed,” he told Sky Sports after he netted twice against Burnley in 2021.
If you’re watching a match on television, the VAR experience isn’t quite as frustrating. Even though the rhythm of the game is put out of sync, you at least know what’s being checked and can see the same slow-motion replays that the referee is puzzling over. But for season ticket-holders, drumming their fingers in the stands, the interruption is made even more irritating because you know the experience of those watching at home is being prioritised. In Norway, supporters have taken to hurling Danish pastries and fishcakes on to the pitch whenever a VAR check is in progress.
People are more likely to perceive an action as intentional if the footage is slowed down
As Daisy Christodoulou points out in I Can’t Stop Thinking About VAR, a new book on the subject, it was partly because people watching football matches on TV have been able to watch slow motion replays — and can see when a referee has got something wrong — that VAR was introduced at the World Cup in 2018, then in the Premier League in 2019.
Ten years earlier, the Republic of Ireland failed to qualify for the World Cup after losing to France 1-0, but to television audiences it was clear that the celebrated French forward Thierry Henry had handballed it just before passing to his teammate William Gallas, who scored the winner.
Another example was Frank Lampard’s “ghost goal” in the England v Germany game at the 2010 World Cup, which wasn’t given even though replays showed it crossed the line. I remember watching that game on television with my four children, all of us wearing England shirts, and being outraged at the injustice of the referee’s decision.
Had the goal been awarded, it would have levelled the score at 2-2 and we might have gone on to win the game. As it was, we lost 4-1 and were knocked out of the tournament.
But while the introduction of Goal Line technology has eliminated that kind of error, VAR hasn’t led to fewer controversies over football’s more nuanced decisions. Often, the matter to be decided is whether a handball was intentional or not and VAR doesn’t necessarily help a referee make that judgement, even though it’s always hauled into service when a decision is disputed.
Christodoulou points out that watching an incident replayed in slow motion may actually lead to poorer decisions. At a 2009 murder trial in the US, the prosecution slowed down footage of the defendant shooting a police officer to prove the act was intentional, but the defence argued that slowing the footage down “created a false impression of premeditation” and that claim was subsequently backed up by a group of researchers.
Using footage of violent incidents in American football matches, they were able to show that people are more likely to perceive an action as intentional if the footage is slowed down. That may be why referees so often cry foul after a VAR review. As fans of Premier League clubs will know, if a goal is submitted to a “check” it will probably be ruled out.
Another problem with VAR, which Christodoulou is good on, is what might be called the “Schrödinger’s Cat” effect, whereby the introduction of a system designed to help officials observe a game more clearly has changed what it is they’re observing. The most obvious example is the way defenders clasp their hands behind their back before trying to block a shot in the box, knowing that if the ball hits any part of their arm it’s likely to be given as a handball, thanks to VAR. But there are other examples, too, such as the way the offside rule has been applied since the introduction of the technology.
This points to a more fundamental problem — the theme of Christodoulou’s book — which is that VAR is predicated on the idea that there’s such a thing as “the objective truth” about what’s just happened in a match and that video technology is just a tool to help referees perceive it accurately. As she makes clear, it’s not possible to eliminate the subjective element in a referee’s decision-making.
Some, if not most, decisions will always require the official to exercise their judgement based on experience and common sense — and therefore the entire premise of VAR is false. It is trying to remove an element of the game that is not only ineradicable, but is an integral part of it.
Christodoulou is pessimistic about turning back the clock and confines herself to suggesting ways VAR could be improved. She may be right about that, but at least we can stop it cascading down the tiers of English football. It’s a terrible blight on the Premier League. We mustn’t let it disfigure the Championship as well.
