How Do We Fix VAR?

After a weekend marred by VAR controversy, we take a look at what needs to change to make the game both more free flowing and fair.

Paul Terry/Sport Image

When the idea of the Video Assistant Referee was first prophesized, the consensus from fans was that it was about time. Any football fan with a memory of the Pre VAR era will be able to recount one moment or another when their team was wrongly punished for a decision that everyone watching at home could see, but the referee was oblivious to. If only the referee could see the angles, we see on television right? Wrong. Somehow, nearly four years since the Premier League announced that they would be adopting VAR for the 2019/20 season, the game we all love feels as if it's being tainted by poor refereeing even more than it was before. After a weekend filled with VAR controversy across the country, from potential red cards in the Merseyside Derby to disallowed goals in London, Manchester, and Newcastle. It seems as if the people have finally had enough of these ridiculous rulings, but the question now is, how do we fix VAR without binning it entirely and returning to those dark prehistoric days of the early 2010s?

Frank Lampard disallowed goal vs Germany

When VAR was first introduced, it was meant to help the referee deal with decisions they couldn't get right consistently. While we might have chalked up early issues such as the offside lines ruling goals out when the attacker was offside by the tiniest margins or decisions taking far too long to inevitable growing pains, but somehow, the current state of VAR is even worse than it was in its infancy. Offsides seem entirely inconsistent, with lines drawn from almost every body part at one point or another. Despite alleged efforts to make the game more free-flowing, referees are being called to the screen to look at soft fouls in the lead-up to goals, which they had already viewed in real-time. While tackles that could be red cards are somehow being ignored by VAR altogether. These decisions affect not only the fairness of match outcomes but, more importantly, the entertainment factor for fans watching from the stands and their TV rooms.

Big Footy.com

There are two main types of decisions that are made during a football match, objective decisions and subjective decisions. VAR should be used chiefly for objective decisions, e.g. handballs and offsides. Subjective decisions are more complex. There will always be disagreement on particular incidents, no matter what we do with VAR, so we should choose what gives the referee the best chance to make their own decision, given the facts, without interrupting the flow of the game.

First and foremost, we need more direct communication between the referee and the supporters. Far too often, supporters in the stands and watching from home are left completely baffled about the reasoning behind decisions, this must stop, and it’s an easy fix. Mic the referees. We see it in loads of other sports, like Rugby; you can hear the referees; in American Football, the referee announces the decision, and it's reasoning to the crowd. It’s straightforward and would immediately clear up some confusion surrounding decision-making.

For objective decisions, the most significant thing we currently lack is structure. I’m not going to touch on handballs here because the issue with handballs is primarily due to the actual game rules and not their implementation. Offsides are a far more glaring issue; for this to become effective, we have to make it as standardized and transparent as possible. First, there needs to be a standardized method of approaching the decision, similar to what we see in cricket when the Umpire is reviewing a Leg Before Wicket. Which step the referees are reviewing should be communicated throughout the entire process. Below is an example of what this might look like:

Step 1: Which player/players are potentially in an offside position.

• At this point the video assistant referee must identify which players are potentially offsides.

Step 2: Is this player/players DIRECTLY interfering with play.

• It doesn't matter if they're offsides if they don't effect play, for example the review on Alexis Macallister's strike from last weekend should have ended here.

Step 3: If yes place a vertical line at either the foot or shoulder of the last defender, depending which is further up the pitch. Or from the edge of the ball if that is ahead of the last defender.

Step 4: Then place a horizontal line at this point cutting across the pitch.

• This line should be thick! Possibly the thickness of the halfway line, this allows us to avoid calling goals offside for a toe length for instance.

• Drawing the line from either the foot or shoulder also eliminates some of the ambiguity of drawing the lines from various other parts of the body like we’ve been seeing, this has to remain consistent.

Step 5: Draw a second vertical line from either the shoulder or foot of the attacker, again depending on which is further up the pitch.

Step 6: If the line drawn from the attacker is past the horizontal line on the pitch (not touching it) the player is judged offsides.

Each of these steps should take roughly ten seconds, meaning the entire review should last about a minute.

An edited image of Conor Coady's goal that was disallowed for offsides

Subjective decisions are a bit more complicated. Referees still need to referee games, so this idea of “re-refereeing”, aka bringing the referee back to look at an incident that he had a great view of the first time around, needs to be scrapped. Decisions like the Odegaard foul and the Bowen foul from last weekend were both judged not to be fouls at first by the referee, who was then advised to review (or re referee). This should only happen in the event of an egregious tackle. So if Martin Odegaard went in studs up through the back of Christian Eriksen or Jarrod Bowen wound up and kicked Mendy, it should be pulled back. But we have to stop re-refereeing. No matter what, there will be subjective decisions. That is not what VAR is for. Those need to be refereed live UNLESS the referee did not have a clear view of the incident.

So for this to happen, we need to implement an order of events for reviewing fouls. First, if we are examining a foul in the lead-up to a goal, the first question that should be asked is, “did you have a good view of that” if the referee says yes and he didn’t decide to blow the whistle, then he should only be asked to look at it again if the foul could possibly be considered a yellow or red card within the rules of the game, this will allow for those nit-picky fouls that may or may not get called, like the Bowen foul and the Odegaard foul to be left up to the discretion of the referee at the moment. This allows the game to flow freely and the fans to enjoy goal celebrations more.

Image: Reuters

For fouls within the regular run of play, again, the referee should be asked, "did you see that" if he says no, and it may be a yellow or red card, then he should be asked to look at it. If he says yes, he should only be asked to look at it if it's a possible red card, and he should ALWAYS be asked to look at it if there is a potential red card. Therefore we avoid incidents like the referee not being asked to look at the Van Dijk tackle on Amadou Onana that could have been considered a red. Again, this will allow the game to flow more freely and means that subjective decisions will be left to the referee's discretion.

Sky Sports

Now, you may be saying, and this is entirely fair, that as long as there is an idiot in the middle of the pitch making subjective decisions, there will be controversy, and to this, I say, you are right! We are never going to make it perfect, but we need to make it better, and I believe with this system for reviews, we will give the referee the best chance possible to make the right decisions that will not only improve the fairness of the game but also its entertainment factor.

Thanks for reading this article from Grubby Balls. Let us know your opinions in the comments and stay tuned for more Premier League articles.