Football News: Another Take On VAR

I have seen on various threads ideas about whether the issues this weekend were simple mistakes right through to targeted corruption. I believe it was somewhere on the broad stretch between. Either way, these weekly occurrences simply can not be allowed to keep happening.

The thing is, there are no repercussions. There is no dumpster fire. You’ve got people like Neville saying the statement from Liverpool was wrong, but that statement is just about the only thing I have seen that does anything other than saying, “grrr, nevermind”.

Every week on MOTD, the same words get used to describe not just officiating, but VAR officiating. I am all for VAR and it could be great, but the way it is implemented is all wrong. From the wording,”clear and obvious”, which is bandied around like it makes sense in subjective decision making, to the way decisions are reviewed themselves with super slow, split second perspectives without showing any broader context, to the way we know the siege mentality means they will not readily change decisions because it undermines the quality of officiating if multiple decisions get overturned each game. The whole system sucks.

As with everything we have these days, the deference to third party organisations to oversee or run things just muddies waters and adds more layers of politics to the governance of things. The PGMOL is only going to be self serving and is not going to admit lack of desire to change fundamental systems, even if they are not fit for purpose, because that shows they don’t know what they are doing.

That, for me, is where the corruption lies. The layers of covering up for each other, for no consequences for egregious title/relegation, changing errors, or the ability to change the rules to save referees. All VAR has done is make referees more visible and enable them to cover for their mates more easily.

The PGMOL should not be able to decide the rules, nor decide how the rules are implemented. Because the Premier League is the only league in England to use VAR, the Premier League should set the rules for how it is used. It needs to be implemented so that all 20 clubs are happy and so that no conflicts of interests occur with appointments of referees. If heinous errors are made, a Premier League panel is responsible for dealing with repercussions and ensuring that referees are held to suitable standards. I don’t believe it should be to chastise them at every juncture, however.

If we stop revering referees as these robots…