Imagine this. Your team need a goal in the last minute to win promotion. They manage to score that elusive goal, and you begin to celebrate wildly for a few seconds. But the euphoria is cut short. The referee wants to check if there was a foul in the build up. It takes the officials three minutes to make a decision. Confusion rings around the ground, nobody knows what on earth is going on. The goal is eventually given, but that initial moment of unbridled joy has been killed.
If VAR is fully introduced into our domestic game, this will become a regular occurrence at football stadiums up and down the country. Week in, week out (with three points at stake instead of promotion perhaps – but that’s still enough of a prize).
And if you experience your team getting a goal chalked off retrospectively, for say a push ten seconds before the goal, then wouldn’t you celebrate with caution every time you score in the future? The feeling of scoring a goal – that instant joy – would never be the same again. You’d constantly worry that the goal will be disallowed, cutting short the celebrations in the process.
Yes, referring injustices are frustrating, but they tend to even themselves out.
Of course goals are disallowed without the use of VAR. But nine times out of ten, a quick glance at the linesman will confirm whether you should hug the nearest stranger, or begin to take out your frustration on your poor plastic seat. That is quick. It doesn’t involve the unnecessary waiting that kills the momentum on the pitch and the emotion on the stands.
Even the biggest of VAR advocates must acknowledge that it’s not ready to be used at this summer’s World Cup. We’ve seen its flaws when it was trialled in the FA Cup. Just think back to the tie between Liverpool and West Brom last season.
In the first half alone, referee Craig Pawson consulted used the technology on three occasions. It took him at least three minutes to award Liverpool a penalty after reviewing footage of Jake Livermore pulling back Mo Salah. He also disallowed a header from Craig Dawson just minutes before.
I’m all for officials being given help. The right decisions were made in the end. But I don’t like how fans are left completely in the dark for minutes on end. Surely that can’t be good for the excitement of football. Certainly in its current form, VAR is too much of a momentum killer to benefit both the game and the experience of going to a football match.
Connor Thorpe Football 