After every weekend of fixtures, the most talked about topic in the Premier League is VAR (video assistant referee). By now, discussing VAR is as common as drinking a pint before the games at a local pub. The reply system was introduced as a way to prevent conversations about officiating, yet all it does is spur more discussions.
The Premier League voted to use VAR starting with the 2019-2020 season. More than halfway into the season, the use of the system has come under heavy scrutiny. For a league that is generating billions of dollars and led by intelligent individuals, they seem to be overlooking an easy fix to VAR.
A simple solution to VAR would be a centrally-located VAR official. As it stands today, the VAR official is another referee at the stadium of the game using video replays to “correct” the referee’s clear and obvious mistakes. The problem with this is that the VAR official is constantly changing. If decisions are judgment calls, then naturally the decisions will vary if the judge is different every game. No human views a game the same way.
Centrally locating the VAR official enables the league to have consistency. It is the consistency that everyone involved in the game wants. It can be anywhere from a one-man team to multiple team members, but as long as the team members remain the same, then over time, you’ll get the consistency that fans seek.
At most, there are a handful of games going on simultaneously. Replays won’t coincide with each other often. According to The Stats Zone, using VAR on average takes 55 seconds to complete. Because of that, you wouldn’t have multiple games being held up because of the centrally-located VAR system.
Even if replays overlap, fans would wait in order to ensure the correct call. Players are constantly writhing on the ground for more than is necessary after a soft challenge. Fans would gladly wait the same amount of time if it meant the correct course of action was taken against a team or player.
This VAR system exposes the league to unwanted criticism. Additionally, the league is doing damage control during games in which the VAR official ruled incorrectly.
The latest occurrence from the Chelsea vs Tottenham match on Feb. 22 generated such a response from the league. These are situations that can be easily avoided.
Let’s hope that this offseason, the Premier League studies themselves and how they can get better. Here’s to hoping the Premier League makes this tweak so we can all stop discussing VAR after games. Our pints will taste better if we’re not complaining about the officiating.
