The introduction of VAR this season was supposed to bring football into line with other 21st century sports but the Premier League seem determined to make it as useless as possible.
I was watching the Manchester United v Crystal Palace match on Saturday afternoon and United were on the receiving end of two really bad calls. In the first half, as last man, Gary Cahill should have seen red when he hauled down the United attacker outside the box. In the second, a clear penalty was waved away by the ref.
It doesn’t matter in this instance who the individual ref was because he is not the issue. Refs make mistakes and that’s why we wanted VAR – to help, not to hinder.
But what the Premier League have concocted is a total farce.
Both calls went to the VAR operators and both agreed with the ref despite clear evidence in front of their eyes that the ref had got it wrong. Now, if I’m watching as an Arsenal fan and saying that it was a clear red and a clear penalty in United’s favour, you can imagine how clear those incidents were.
But still the VAR operators backed up Paul Tierney. And these weren’t the only incidents we saw this weekend alone.
VAR operators have been instructed to only correct the ref’s call if it is a ‘clear and obvious’ error, but linesmen seem fair game. I’m not sure what’s more clear and obvious than a player being hauled to the ground in the box and the ref giving nothing, but apparently that’s not clear enough. A toenail offside, however, can be deemed ‘clear and obvious’ if the linseman missed it, as long as we’re only taking goals away, of course.
The VAR operators, it seems, are looking to find reasons the ref is right rather than looking to determine what actually happened.
This matters.
All teams will be on the end of calls like these throughout the season and the technology that is available to put an end to game-changing decisions is being used so badly it’s actually hurting the game rather than helping it as it should.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
VAR doesn’t have to be used this way.
If the Premier League really wanted to make a success of VAR they wouldn’t have given the instructions they have this season.
More importantly, they would be keen to use VAR to make the right call, not simply to justify the wrong one.