Iron Bru › Forums › Blast Furnace › VAR › Reply To: VAR
The proponents of VAR claimed it would remove controversy from the game and that football was worse with contentious, on the spot, refereeing decisions. With the amount of admitted wrong VAR calls, I don’t see how this can be the case.
A review has concluded that the last minute penalty awarded to Celtic in their game against Motherwell should not have been given and this cost Hearts the title. There is a lot of skepticism towards the neutrality of the authorities in Scotland from non-Old Firm fans and this has really added to the conspiracy. I have to say, with good reason given the peculiar calls over there.
Far from removing controversy, it has added to it. Sure, we have other things like social media that have ramped up conspiracism, but it has only got worse with VAR. Before, people could say the refs had a short time to make a decision; sure, there were bias claims, but there were mitigating factors that made people think it wasn’t so overt. Now, we have VAR being inconsistent and people will see it as a conspiracy to favour certain teams because they have to take time to arrive at their decision; the scope for error is assumed to be lower.
VAR just ruins celebrations, delays the game and does not bring an end to controversy from discussions over decisions, as was the claimed need for it. It’s true that much of this is because of the humans that use the technology, but it has been consistently poor and not just in the UK. Last world cup, I remember a dubious penalty given to Argentina when 1-0 down to Poland after losing the first game to Saudi Arabia, and comments online were “got to get Messi his world cup, so can’t have them going out of the group stage.”
You cannot define a season on one incident.
Whilst the penalty for Celtic may have been wrong, there was an even worse decision in the Hearts v Hibs game, which meant Hearts went on to win the game. You could say it cost Celtic the title!!
The reality is that VAR mistakes are made in too many matches and with the widespread TV coverage it gets played time and time again.
The nearer to the end of the season, or a k/o competition, the worse the controversy becomes.
It is my belief that if the players stopped cheating it would make the referees job much easier.
I also believe that the referee should be left to run the game and that linesmen should contribute more.