VAR in football – a blessing or a curse?
Dear all
In Monday’s assembly, we explored the evolution of VAR in football and the broader question of whether humans remain masters of technology, or its servants.
The Video Assistant Referee – or VAR – has fundamentally changed the world’s most popular sport. The technology, designed to help officials make more accurate decisions, has generated discussion, debate, and controversy among fans, players, and managers alike. The idea of using technology to help referees make decisions in football has existed for decades, but it was only in the last decade that VAR was introduced on a global scale. A significant moment came in 2018, when the International Football Association Board approved the use of VAR in official competitions.
For those less interested in football, VAR is a video replay system that involves a team of officials monitoring games from a centralised location miles away from the action. Its main objective is to correct ‘clear and obvious errors‘, or ‘serious missed incidents‘, by advising the referee to review decisions they’ve made. VAR reviews a limited number of incidents during a match, including checking goals for any infringements in the build-up, decisions to award or not award a penalty, incidents that could lead to a player being sent off, and mistaken identity to ensure the referee has penalised the right person after an offence. It also helps referees avoid mistakes, thereby improving fairness and accuracy. Its supporters also point to its positive impact on player discipline, the frequency of players arguing with referees, and some even believe that the suspense of waiting for a decision can add to the excitement.
On the other hand, opponents have argued that it disrupts the flow of the game, with lengthy delays that frustrate fans, who – along with players – often now hesitate to celebrate a goal due to the uncertainty of a potential VAR review. A survey for Sky Sports found that 67% of fans believe VAR makes watching football less enjoyable. Nor has VAR has not eliminated mistakes, and interpretations of handball, fouls, and offside still lead to disagreements, with some critics arguing that VAR blunts the natural skills of referees.
In an effort to address these problems, the Scottish FA has enlisted the help of aviation experts who train pilots to speak to referees about communication in the cockpit during high-pressure, difficult situations. While piloting is a matter of life or death and clearly football is not, the SFA feels that helping referees to stay calm, think about the facts, and maintain a rational approach while on the pitch or in VAR HQ will ensure that, where subjective interpretation is needed, these qualities will improve their decision-making. The aviation experts were able to train referees in the use of specific communication techniques. For example, VAR officials are being coached on asking open rather than closed questions of their teammates, which allows them to give their own opinion rather than answers they think their boss is looking for. In this way, they hope to exploit all the possible benefits from modern technology while ensuring the human aspect of the game both survives and thrives.’
If you have no interest in football, the above may have seemed like a lot of words carrying little importance, whereas if you love the sport, you will almost certainly have an opinion about VAR, and it may well be influenced by the last time it was used when your team was playing.
More broadly, however, it shows both how technology is shaping almost every aspect of our lives and how human input remains so important. As I said to our students on Monday, within 10 years, every one of them will have left school and most likely entered the workplace. By that time, the interplay of machine and human will have advanced a great deal, and our individual fortunes will likely depend on the extent to which we’ve made technology our servant rather than our master. Perhaps the best way we can do that is by learning from those who work in different sectors from our own, and in that way, maybe the Scottish Football Association is onto something.
Have a great weekend
Best wishes
Michael Bond
