The Premier League’s VAR experiment has failed and it should be abandoned

I was once a big fan of bringing in VAR technology, as a high stakes sport deserves the best possible officiating.

But I’m not to proud to admit I was wrong. Very wrong! Particularly when it comes to the Premier League, where the implementation of the technology has been inescapably…disappointing.

Every single week in England’s top flight, multiple VAR controversies arise. Last weekend, for example, Roberto Firmino had an offside decision confirmed when VAR official Martin Atkinson redrew the lines to make it appear as if the Brazilian was gaining an advantage… via his armpit.

So Firmino was only offside depending on how the line was drawn on the screen—which goes to show that VAR isn’t providing concrete ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers in many circumstances.

The fallible opinions of the officials on the field are just being replaced with the fallible opinions of the officials looking at screens in a remote location.

The system is also wildly inconsistent: Dele Alli’s handball against Everton last weekend was not given, but it might have been on a different weekend, with different VAR officials.

VAR should probably only be used to call out huge glaring errors, but it’s being used in a very heavy handed manner: Two weeks ago, it ruled out an Arsenal winner against Crystal Palace for a barely imperceptible offense that I still can’t work out.

Meanwhile, something like Heung-Min Son’s harsh red card isn’t the kind of thing that isn’t being reviewed.

But perhaps the biggest issue for VAR in the Premier League is that the referees haven’t been looking at the pitch-side screens themselves—like they do in most other leagues.

This means they are ceding their power to VAR and giving the refs in the remote location the final say, rather than using the technology to inform their own decisions.

So, VAR is inconsistent, it does not remove all doubt, and in the Premier League, it is not even being used to its best potential.

And for fans, it wipes out the immediate joy of goal celebration, and those in the stadium have no clue what’s going on during reviews.

And worst of all, VAR is all we ever talk about now. Highlights packages on TV are just full of VAR incidents, because they have to be! I’d rather be watching highlights of actual soccer, rather than tedious debates on decisions!

It might be possible to refine VAR, but let’s face it: we would be better off without it.

New initiatives have been scrapped in the past—remember Silver Goal extra time?—so it’s not too late to admit that VAR has been a waste of time and it should be abandoned.

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