The video assistant referee was firstly introduced in 2017 in England. The aim for introducing the VAR system in football is to incorporate technology and improving the consistency, accuracy in decisions, and allowing referees to make decisions as accurately as they can, without allowing anyone for igniting any controversy.
The VAR working pattern has raised many questions as we know in a football match, the decisions are not cut and dried and most of the decisions are made by the on-ground referee. So, when the referee took the help of VAR, and where from the controversy begins?
There are generally four types of decisions, penalties, cards, goals, and card booking number can be reviewed through VAR. All this decision has vast importance in a match results, a minor mistake in the decision could create a mess for everyone.
From the last few years, VAR technology has successfully become a part of football matches. A referee took the help of VAR whenever the referee feels to take the help of it by looking at the event in a Hawkeye. However, the VAR didn’t come up with all solutions, the controversy still exists right after its decision-making process.
Back in 2018, the VAR has been a significant part on decision-making in the Women’s World Cup. The entire world cup has become controversial due to the bad decision making done by the VAR. All football fans seemed unhappy with its decision-making pattern and claimed it, to be a bad referee.
Many fans blamed the VAR system for their team’s defeat and overall match absurdness but for us, it’s not the VAR nor the referee, it is the rules which have been molded and applied by human decision-makers. There are cameras all over the ground, catching every moment and keeping eye on the entire match and recording each move of players. The referee runs towards the VAR for reviewed decision and now the games changes. The VAR exposed all the errors of law developed by humans and humans are rectifying it as well, isn’t a joke for fans?
The issue with the VAR system isn’t solely itself but there are plenty of aspects that are not digestible for fans. From which “accepting a robotic system” is in one of the majors. The robots are programmed and they are programmed to obey the orders not to deliver their self-assessed outcomes. Even I have never seen any machine that disobey or go against its program. Fans are in fear with VAR’s negative decision making and they feel FIFA should impose some strict rules which will help on-ground referee to make their decisions confidentially whether it is in their favor or not.
In the end, we would like to testify here, that incorporating VAR in the ground exposed the error of on-ground referees. Exposing errors will raise questions on referee decisions and the rules created by the bodies. Whether the offside has occurred or not, the goal is scored or not all these things need to be decided by the on-ground referee rather than allowing VAR to present cold calls.