Is VAR really that useful?

Is VAR really that useful?

Most global sports have certain reviewing mechanisms designed to correct decisions made by on-field officials and referees. For example, tennis and badminton have a challenge system, where each player can contest the referee’s decision a certain number of times, while cricket has DRS, designed to assist the umpire with the dismissal of batsmen. 

Strangely, until recently, football, the most viewed sport in the world, showed inexplicable resistance to technological advancements. The 'goal line technology' was finally adopted by FIFA in 2012, after many controversial decisions such as Frank Lampard’s goal against Germany in the 2010 FIFA world cup being disallowed. While this was one step forward, due to its expense, it was used only at the highest level of football, as even La Liga - one of the top 5 European football leagues - adopted this technology only from the 2018-19 season, following some poor decisions such as Lionel Messi’s goal against Valencia in 2017 being disallowed, despite video footage showing the ball clearly cross the line. While its implementation was lacking, another issue with only using this technology was its limited purview: it could not assist the referee with other match changing circumstances such as awarding a penalty, issuing a red card or even flagging a player offside.

Frank Lampard's disallowed strike against England in the 2010 World Cup

VAR or video assistant referee seemed to be the panacea for these refereeing problems, as referees could refer to video footage of an incident before making a decision. In fact, after the knockout stages of the 2017-18 Champions' League, many fans were crying for VAR, as they felt that Real Madrid had many decisions go their way. However, after the 2018 World cup experience, this perspective changed dramatically. The first problem with VAR was that only the video assistant referee could request the on-field referee to review a decision, which is unlike all other sports, where the players get to ask for a reappraisal. This meant that many instances which may have been observed by a player, could not be reviewed due to the same having escaped the notice of both, the on-field and video assistant referees. 

While the aforementioned problem can still be solved, a more worrying shortcoming of VAR is that the on-field referee’s initial decision is overturned only when there is a ‘clear or obvious error’, which again, is decided by him. This entails that only if the video footage suggests that there has been a evident mistake will the referee consider changing his mind. Ambiguous video footage would render referee’s discretion as the sole determinant of the correctness of a decision. The first instance of usage of VAR in the 2018 world cup to overturn a decision would itself be controversial. During the match between France and Australia, France were awarded a spot kick after Antoine Griezmann was brought down in the penalty area by Josh Risdon in the 54^thminute. While the referee initially refused to award a penalty, deeming it a fair challenge, after watching the video footage, he adjudged it to have been a foul. Curiously, the footage appeared to show Risdon clipping the ball cleanly off Griezmann, which led to Australian fans booing the decision. France went on to win the match 2-1, helping them progress to the round of 16 along with Australia, but this instance led to many questioning the effectiveness of VAR.

John Risdon's tackle on Griezmann

This is only one instance when decisions made after consulting VAR have been criticised. In the first leg of the Carabao cup semi-final between Chelsea and Tottenham, Harry Kane was not flagged offside, going on to scoring the only goal of the match. Chelsea’s manager Maurizio Sarri, rather amusingly, used his laptop at the post-match press conference to prove that Kane was offside prior to him scoring.

This is not to say that VAR is useless and should be scrapped. The inclusion of VAR has been approved after many initial hurdles, so a few debatable results should not be enough reason to do away with it altogether. According to FIFA statistics, VAR has had a success rate of 99.3% as compared to 95% of correct calls without it. This shows that football is, indeed, better off with VAR. Since this technology is still in the nascent stage, there is tremendous room for improvement, and we should not give up on it just yet. 

So, to conclude, VAR is one step towards improving the accuracy of decision making in football, but significant improvements are required before it can ensure that the result of a match is determined solely by the quality of the teams. Hopefully, one day, VAR will not be the scapegoat when your favourite football team loses a match…