Is VAR going to make football less exciting for fans?

Let’s talk about VAR by Daniel Honour

Away from the focus of our team the biggest decisions in the EPL is happening in a centre of tv screens miles away from any game being played.

Only from memory but around 20 odd years ago there was pressure to professionalise refereeing due to odd decisions and no accountability. Now we have adopted a system that is beyond question so is the professional referee now redundant and should the old model of refs now be revisited?

Teams are losing points due to the deployed technology but is this a good thing for the supporters and sport. There can be little debate about a ref performance and they now have no accountability again.

While not every decision is referred it does feel like the debate of what could have been has diminished and the passion from fans of injustice starts to focus further to just the team or individual players faults or strengths.

We will be on the right and wrong end of decisions of var this season but seeing a stadium looking at a screen for confirmation of a good goal rather than celebrate it immediately takes something away for me.

What’s your thoughts?

Daniel

42 Comments

  1. I would like to see Var being used similar to what happens in cricket where the captain’s of each side has limited amount of challenges (one per half)to the referees decisions.A limit to the amount of times it can be used Will keep the game flowing and will also test the judgement of the captain’s.

    1. It wouldn’t really work as it’d immediately be used as a time wasting tool by the teams when they haven’t used the challenges towards the end of the game and they’re leading.

  2. It makes a football match more interesting to me, because there will be no room for corrupted and incompetent officials anymore

    Man United, Barcelona, Bayern Muenchen and Juventus benefited a lot from dubious official decisions in the past. VAR will minimize those mistakes

    1. I agree with you, it gives less room for corruption and mistakes, and let’s not forget you can’t apply var for every single foul…
      Arsenal have suffered enough because of the referees, it’s good for us!

    2. gotanidea, You seriously think there are “corrupted and incompetent officials?” How biased can any fan be! Incompetent ? Certainly and most of them too. But corrupt? Never, unless you are Kenny Rolfe or one of his band of conspiracy theorists who think all refs plus the refs association are down on Arsenal and that they all favour Man Utd. I don’t subscribe to any of THIS NONSENSE. I favour reality,always!

      1. Although, imagine Mike Dean cackling madly from the hidden VAR room (having chloroformed his colleagues) during a key Arsenal game, yelling “PENALTY! RED CARD! RACIAL ABUSE!” every time we get the ball! ???
        ?

        1. z TOM, I cannot decide if your post is just a failed attempt to be humourous or – which is far more important – that you honestly think it is funny or sensible to so blithely disrespect the integrity of refs and of Mike Dean in particular. Do you have the slightest inkling of what happens before refs are allocated top games and of what all top refs must go through every time they referee? And of how they spend long years at various lower levels being assessed by observers who carefully watch and mark their progress! I fervently hope, for the sake of your IQ, that it is merely the failed humour attempt. That matters not at all, by comparison to the other pathetic and immature possibility that you actually believe your own post and what it says. Refs have an almost impossible job as it is , without puerile and infantile ravings from someone who neither cares nor, seemingly, even knows how top refs get to the top.

          1. That was obviously a joke, Einstein… ?
            What on Earth do you think the emojis are for??
            Welcome to the Internet. It’s clearly your first day around here.

  3. I anticipated VAR, and waited for the introduction but now that it’s here, I realized It makes match boring and time wasting. It’s exciting now to some pple becouse it’s new. We will all get tired of it soon

  4. Would VAR not have been helpful and prevented Maradonas goal by the “Hand of God”. I surely do wellcome VAR cos that means more justice into football. A lot of very, very important games have had a wrong outcome because of wrong referee judgements.

  5. I don’t like VAR. Some bod 100 miles away sees something on a screen after replaying it 10 times and let’s the ref know, as in the case of the “goal” scored against spurs yesterday. Apart from routine stuff the reffing of the game is taking place on line, actually a bit like we do….

  6. VAR is new and will be quicker once it has been adapted to epl. Would you rather watch and moan tottenham, Liverpool players diving every game and cheating to win. Man city ridiculous tactical fouls and offsides goals.

    I would rather wait some time than get that anger of losing due to dives and offside goals or the awkward feeling when we score a illegal goal.

  7. I can’t just stop laughing with Keown’s comment on Pepe’s nutmeg on Mee.

    Keown said, “Mee needed to buy another ticket to get back in the stadium”???????

      1. Pepe nutmegged a few players, it was like he actively looks for it, I noticed in is videos online that there are plenty of president for it. The future is bright.

  8. When there’s no grey areas in life just black or white life becomes boring,just like moronic VAR.Why interfere with a game that is enjoyed and played by millions world wide and is by far the biggest sport in the world, it’s madness !!!!!!

    1. Because that sport has been made a joke of for decades due to some occasional ridiculous incorrect decisions that negated all the point of playing if some dude decides the outcome of the game based on hunches he can’t possibly be sure about?
      There always be SOME errors and debates but when technology is there so the the true result actually is the one that corresponds to the outcome of the battle between the 2 teams, in accordance to the spirit of sport, it’d be silly to stick with a more incorrect system.

      1. Obviously ztom you have not been to a match where VAR is participating because if did you would see how it kills the whole atmosphere in this great game

        1. I have and I would have agreed only with the way VAR was tested in previous seasons in the Cup but not anymore.
          Now, you at least have the screens updating the crowd about what’s happening and the FA added a rule so that the main ref is advised not to go check the screen and trust the calls of the VAR refs.
          As a result, things are quicker and more clear.

    2. Bill Bee i don’t think you will enjoy the game if your team or any other team lost because of a dubious ref decision of offside,redcard or penalty. football is a game of fairness and to have teams lose matches because of unfair decisions is what make VAR very important

  9. How do you know fa can’t rub you using VAR it’s still a technology that can be manipulated I prefer watching football without VAR.as var always kill match tempo.

  10. I think the issue is with the new laws and not with VAR the goal against Spurs was only taken away because of the new handball law (which needs to be changed in my opinion). I think if VAR becomes quicker after everyone is acclimated to it then it will be a good thing as long as the law makers get there end right.

  11. VAR should be called 1984 and supervised by George Orwell.next we will have body cameras worn by the players plus a new farting law that says two farts in game and your off

  12. VAR is fine, but the extent to which it is used and the rules surrounding it need adjusting. The two City goals that have been denied so far this season are a bit silly. Sterling has a quarter of his shoulder offside and a goal that looked legitimate to anybody but a robot says no goal.The ball grazes Laporte’s arm and a goal gets ruled out. Same thing happened to Wily Boly last weekend. VAR needs to simply help the ref and not make make it seem like a robot is controlling the game. I’ll take the inaccuracy over robots killing the joy of the game. End of the day football should be exciting. Having goals that look perfectly fine put under a microscope for just about anything is not exciting. And now we all delay fully celebrating for at least 30 seconds because you just never know now. Change the rules surrounding VAR, give more power to refs and to players, and recognize the human part of the sport. For example, humans have arms and we cannot expect players to have them behind their backs the entire game.

  13. Don’t like VAR? Then get the broadcast media to stop showing instant replays, replay close-ups, etc. Prior to VAR, match officials were constantly pilloried for their close calls; if the public can’t see the close-ups and freeze-frames on their screens, they’ll just have to accept the ref’s decisions. End of debate.

  14. I don’t think VAR is the problem but the rules handball is a stupid one and the offside too,do you really think that a shoulder or not even a foot are an advantage like Nelson”s disallowed goal did Montreal had that much of an advantage?it reminds me of little Britain”the computer says no”what we need var and common sense where the ref can overturn the VAR!!

  15. The crazy thing about VAR is that Man City had their ‘winner’ disallowed because it brushed a Man City hand….would a penalty have been given though if the ball had brushed a Tottenham hand? No, for sure. You can’t have one rule for the attack but a different one for the defence. An moronic rule.

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