Is it time to kick VAR out of football?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Sunday 20 October at Church House, London.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
In 2018, the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) was introduced at the World Cup in Russia – and the arguments about it haven’t stopped since, with complaints that decisions are still often wrong while lengthy reviews cause confusion and frustration.

Using technology to help referees get important decisions right seemed like such a good idea. For example, in 2010, England midfielder Frank Lampard famously had a goal against Germany in the World Cup disallowed, despite the ball clearly crossing the goal line. One result was the introduction of technology that can tell the referee instantly if the ball has crossed the goal-line. However, goal-line technology can only assist with one source of refereeing error. VAR enables a wider range of decisions to be reviewed.

One criticism is that VAR is still subject to human subjectivity and fallibility, as it depends on how referees view and apply the rules, with incorrect decisions still being made and with inconsistency between matches. The most high-profile VAR error occurred last autumn, when confused communication between the on-pitch referee and the VAR meant a goal by Liverpool against Tottenham Hotspur was erroneously disallowed – despite the VAR making the correct decision. Representatives of one Premier League club, Wolves, were so incensed by a string of bad decisions that they put forward a motion to scrap VAR altogether.

Secondly, VAR slows down the game as goals or penalty decisions are subject to laborious reviews, playing havoc with the emotions of players and spectators. One former England player, Paul Scholes, has complained that the ‘VAR experience is poor, the in-stadium experience for the supporter. It’s nowhere near good enough.’

However, the football authorities believe that VAR has made the game fairer by improving both decision accuracy and transparency as fans can see the video replays. Responding to the Wolves motion, the Premier League pointed out that VAR has substantially improved decision making overall, while acknowledging that decisions currently take too long.

Has VAR ruined football? Why has video technology been so controversial in football when it has been much more successful in other sports, like cricket and tennis? How can we remove human error, or is human error an inevitable part of the game? Can VAR be fixed, or should it be given the red card?

SPEAKERS
Duleep Allirajah
football writer; longterm spiked contributor; co-founder, Libero! network; season-ticket holder, Crystal Palace

Jonny Gould
TV and radio presenter; journalist; host, Jonny Gould's Jewish State

Omar Mohamed
student, Royal Holloway University

Sally Taplin
business consultant, Businessfourzero; visiting MBA lecturer, Bayes Business School; former board member, Lewes FC

CHAIR
Geoff Kidder
director, membership and events, Academy of Ideas; convenor, AoI Book Club