[Football] VAR, 6 years in - Keep it or bin it?

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

I still celebrate. To me it’s no different from before i.e. celebrate, unless it’s clearly offside, and then worry about the offside. The only difference now is it’s VAR as opposed to a linesman. This certainly seems to be the case for players.

A linesman would put their flag up as the goal goes in so you celebrate for a second before saying "no! It's offside".

VAR we celebrate, go back to the centre, hear there is a check.....and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait...


It's completely different

 

[BBassic]

As of May 14, 2025, Video Assistant Referee (VAR) interventions have led to 45 goals being disallowed in the 2024–25 Premier League season. These disallowed goals encompass various infractions, including offside (32 instances), handball (7), fouls (4), and the ball going out of play prior to the goal (3) .

VAR has also awarded 25 penalties this season, with 21 successfully converted. Additionally, 11 red cards have been issued following VAR reviews, with one of these decisions subsequently overturned .

That's roughly 4% of the total goals scored (1,060 by my sums)

I'd quite like to see the breakdown of who those 45 disallowed goals have impacted. I'm off to Google.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

I think some say bin it without a second thought. Bit like saying Kuipers couldn't kick after he sorted it. It has to stay or the Big Six or Seven will never change. Witness our match v Newcastle and a ref giving every contact /decision their way on autobias. .

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

It's a bit like the Brexit vote this, Leave or Remain. The answer should be keep, but CHANGE it. So many ways to improve it.

I couldn't be happy if we stopped VAR and then Newcastle got both of those penalty decisions.

The problems when we celebrate a goal and then find out its being reversed are 99% of the time a toenail being offside. Changing that to allowing overlap a la Wenger will go a long way to resolving this

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

As of May 14, 2025, Video Assistant Referee (VAR) interventions have led to 45 goals being disallowed in the 2024–25 Premier League season. These disallowed goals encompass various infractions, including offside (32 instances), handball (7), fouls (4), and the ball going out of play prior to the goal (3) .

VAR has also awarded 25 penalties this season, with 21 successfully converted. Additionally, 11 red cards have been issued following VAR reviews, with one of these decisions subsequently overturned .

Presumably that count for goals disallowed for offside only includes tight cases where the linesman doesn't flag at any point?

I'm sure a significant portion of the time when people complain about VAR making a decision, it's actually backing up the call made on the field, but that gets forgotten by the time they've spent 5minutes checking everything.

 

[NigelTaylor82]

On balance keep it but with quicker decision making

 

[nicko31]

Still in team bin it.

It kills the drama and the delays are tedious.

The game will never be perfect, but with so much money in the game now it will be here to stay

Keep the goal line tech, thats OK

 

[Washie]

Have a ref and VAR ref. Both with different training. Objective calls like offside, goal line, corners and such are VAR. Subjective is on field with help from VAR

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

In rugby, the ref can refer most things up to the TMO to check while still being in control of the game.

Hmm, only tries or potential red card offences get checked, though I think in theory they could check for more, in practice they don't

 

[Taybha]

I'm usually a lover not a fighter but I'd kick the shit out of VAR until it finally disappeared from football, basically I don't really like it.

 

[Left Footer]

Keep it, it's not going away. FACT

 

[hans kraay fan club]

As of May 14, 2025, Video Assistant Referee (VAR) interventions have led to 45 goals being disallowed in the 2024–25 Premier League season. These disallowed goals encompass various infractions, including offside (32 instances), handball (7), fouls (4), and the ball going out of play prior to the goal (3) .

There have been 1,060 goals scored this season in the PL.

So, 1 in 24.5 have been subsequently ruled out by VAR.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

I think we should make refs better. This would be my plan

Get rid of the idea that there are PL refs, Championship refs etc.

Every weekend every ref performance in a division is checked using the normal ref assessment. The top 50% go up a division. The bottom 50% go down. There's no mechanism to stay in the same division for the following week unless you were in the top half of PL refs. If you're reffing a PL game, you get loads more money than if you ref in league 2. So you're going to pay attention and stop buggering about like half of them do.

With this, it's very quick for a talented grassroots ref to go from National League to PL. Someone like Pawson is going to quickly have to learn where Fylde is.

 

[Blues Guitarist]

Get some foreign referees in.

What?

I've seen a number of English referees at CL games in Austria and they always seem to have good games with no shit interference from VAR, which leads me to think that it's the PGMOL implementation that's at fault, not var itself or even English referees.

 

[Nitram]

I was a big supporter of this but the way it’s been implemented and used for finding ways to disallow goals rather than giving the benefit of doubt which I believe was the original intention has killed it for me. Waiting in a ground to re-celebrate a goal killing the moment of pure joy has taken away so much of the live experience. I voted get rid.

 

[bhafc99]

I'll get back to you

No you won’t. You’ll take an age, and then ask us to go and have another look ourselves. That’s the VAR way.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Keep it.
Anyway, it is going nowhere.

But tweak the rubric.
I won't bore on yet again about clear blue daylight and a 20 second rule.....
eventually the world of football will catch up......

(I respect the view of @Guinness Boy and he will doubtless explain his position shortly).

You will no doubt be unsurprised to learn that I regard VAR as a mood-hoover, a joy sucker, an unrelenting misery that creates a substandard in ground "fan experience" and hasn't removed any of the controversy. It has changed how the game is played and has contributed to football becoming a science, rather than an art. Along with xG, "revolving, inverted low blocks out of possession" and vloggers in the stands it can get in the sea.

However, I am not @goldstone and I fully accept that there is much to modern football that is great. The levels of skill and athleticism surpass anything seen in the past, the data analytics and algos allow "teams like Brighton" to succeed in the top division and become more than the sum of their parts, goalkeepers now who are as good with the ball as their defenders rather than being the fat, mad bloke who wasn't good enough on pitch. All these things are wonderful.

But, when just last weekend, there was outrage that Leyton Orient scored from five yards offside and EQUAL outrage on these very pages and one of my WhatsApp groups that Welbz had a perfectly good goal chalked off by the mood hoover, VAR has solved nothing. It's just given us something else to be mad at.

There, I suspect you knew I'd say that word for word

 

[BadFish]

I am not voting because I don't go to games and I don't know how many more correct decisions it has led to.

To my mind it's worst effect is when you are actually at the game and it ruins the flow.

Perhaps this is worth it it there has been. A huge increase in correct decisions.

It does seem to be discussed a lot less than it used to I guess it getting better.

I am guessing the poll is mostly in favour of getting rid?

 

[Giraffe]

I thought I'd wait to see others comments before voicing my own as didn't want to distort the poll with my own views.

I should say from day one I have been against VAR but must confess I had under estimated how bad it would be.

I was always against it because I didn't want the sheer joy of scoring a goal to be taken away as it has done now. I also always felt that despite the moans about bad refs I couldn't see that we had hardly ever really lost out as a result of bad ref decisions. In my 40+ years of supporting the only decisions that really mattered that come readily to mind that could have been changed by VAR are these:

Maradona handball - clearly would have been ruled out by VAR
Lampard ball crossing the line - goal line tech would deal with that now
Dale Stephens being sent off at Middlesborough - POTENTIALLY cost us being promoted, but would this even have been overturned? probably not?

And these were the type of decisions that I expected VAR to get involved in.

Instead they have created a beast where every single goal gets looked at, every challenge in the box. It's bloody painful as hell. They have clearly pulled it back a bit this season but that just means you have slightly less of a bad thing but possibly more inconsistency as a result.

I watch less non Albion football now because VAR winds me up so much. I remember watching the Everton equaliser v Liverpool and loving the joy that brought their supporters, only to then watch VAR spend three mins trying to find a way to rule it out.

Imagine that Sunderland goal last night being ruled out by a push in the box somewhere?

I think back to some of my best moments supporting the Albion. Stick VAR into the mix and is it better or worse. The Robbie Reinelt goal. Possible offside in build up? Ulloa goal, something to look at there. I'd have certainly been worrying about it and not going quite so 100% batshit crazy. Zamora last minute winner at Leeds?

I'm absolutely not against tech helping but it has to be instant. Just as goal line tech is, that's great. Until they get to the point where offside ruling is instant which I am sure they will at some point, allowing the lino to flag it straight away, they should bin it off, and keep VAR out of other petty decisions.

 

[Giraffe]

The other point I'd make is it has also changed behaviour both in terms of players and refs. Players now know they have to make a big deal of something just to make sure that VAR thinks to look at it. Refs are now aware their decision can be changed. It's like a get out clause for being rubbish at your job. Human nature therefore means you are worse at your job. I bet if you did a confidential poll of refs most would say they prefer not to have it and be the only official making the final decision.