25 August 2023
VAR: The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum
In 2019, after clubs unanimously voted for its introduction, VAR (Video Assistant Referee) was brought into the Premier League. Everyone was hoping that it would right the wrongs that we were seeing in the beautiful game. Having seen it work so seamlessly in both cricket and rugby, it seemed a no-brainer that football should follow suit.
Four years later, we are still talking about the issues with the system on a weekly basis. Football fans had hoped the introduction of the new technology would stop the need for post-match analysis to constantly be talking about mistakes made by officials, yet it is still the biggest talking point to this day.
For all the use it is to Premier League matches currently, they could have saved money on all the expensive cameras and hi-tech studios and got a police sketch artist to capture incidents. The length of time we have to wait for reviews to be completed, there would be ample time for drawings to be sketched.
There is no excuse for VAR not working, in rugby and cricket it is highly effective. It is not dragging out games while fans wait for tenuous decisions but adding value as it was intended. Instead, we have created an evil that is preventing goals being celebrated as players stand around the pitch while Stockley Park looks through footage worrying about how to not upset their mates.
Credit: @AftvBelgium
Everything was in place to ensure that the laws of the game were followed to the letter but somewhere the message has been lost. As Mike Dean recently revealed, he once overlooked an incident to ‘protect his friend’ Anthony Taylor, who was the match referee for a game between Chelsea and Tottenham.
This is where the problem with VAR is centred, the people whose incompetency created the need for video technology, are now sat in Stockley Park reviewing incidents for Premier League games. Being a match official is the one occupation where you can make mistakes on every shift and still have a job to go to the following day. It truly is baffling.
While officials are taken off duty for a week or so after a monumental error, they are still paid, which eliminates the action being any sort of motivation to perform to the levels required. Saying ‘your work hasn’t been up to scratch, so we’ve decided you’re not working next week, but you still get paid’ does not seem like any sort of discipline whatsoever.
Now with VAR firmly in place, it seems to have become akin to an ‘old boys club’ which employs the approach of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It completely makes a mockery of its implementation. More worried about the image of their friends than applying the laws of the game. Becoming a Premier League referee is like being ‘made’ in the mafia, it makes you bulletproof it seems.
The question now is, what will cause the change that is needed? It does not seem outside the realms of possibility that one day they will turn a blind eye to a blatant incident that will result in a team missing out on a league title, Champions League spot or even finding themselves relegated. Potentially, a club could look to sue PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) for loss of revenue due to one of their mistakes. The post-match apology no longer cuts the mustard.
Howard Webb has now been appointed to the position of ‘chief refereeing officer’ or mafia don, depending on which way you look at things. It is ironic really as Webb was never short of controversy as a referee himself, often criticised for being more lenient with Man Utd than any other team, although he claims Rotherham are the only United he has ever supported. Maybe he should just be given the ‘best supporting actor’ award instead.
In the last seven days we have seen just how broken VAR is. Alexis Mac Allister’s red card against Bournemouth and Takehiro Tomiyasu’s second yellow card that then led to the player’s sending off were beyond a joke. The officials in the VAR studio in Stockley Park just will not overrule an onfield decision. In the case of the Arsenal man, they could not intervene due to it being a yellow card that he was awarded and not a straight red. A crazy rule to have in place.
Credit: @bkomun
Even when they do get involved, they send the referee to the monitor to allow them to change their own decision. More worried about ruining the reputation of friends than doing what they are employed to do. The lunatics are most definitely now running the asylum. They’re making video technology about as useless as CCTV in shopping car parks. When you need it, it is never there for you.
talkSPORT’s Alan Brazil summed up the refereeing this season saying “it’s an absolute joke, you’d think they’d just come down from Mars and said there’s a whistle, out you go.” The PGMOL were forced to apologise to Wolves when they were not awarded a penalty at Old Trafford after the first round of fixtures this season but Gary O’Neil’s side still went away with no points.
Football has now got to the stage where pundit shows are getting in ex-referees to explain the bizarre decisions. Like some form of translator for the warped mind of a referee. It is hard enough dealing with the likes of Chris Sutton, Robbie Savage and Michael Owen covering games but now we have to put up with referees on our favourite shows too.
Fans would prefer to see VAR scrapped according to polls, it is driving the purists to lower league football in order to see the game played as they used to love. While refereeing is not an easy job, it should be with the introduction of video technology. There is no excuse for getting things wrong anymore, we need to see action as opposed to Howard Webb getting his five minutes of fame every couple of weeks on Sky Sports.
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