VAR: The system that has taken over the football world. Was it necessary?

This is the conversation that has been on everyone’s minds for just shy of a decade. Does VAR have a place in modern football?

 

What is VAR?

VAR stands for ‘Video Assistant Referee’ and as most of you will already know, it is the technology used in football to aid the referee in making decisions on the pitch.

 

VAR was created to reduce ‘clear and obvious errors’ in critical match situations. Situations like goals, penalties and red cards.

 

The origins of VAR

In the early 2010s, the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) came up with the idea of VAR as part of a project called Refereeing 2.0.

 

The system underwent mock trials during the 2012-13 Eredivisie season before the International Football Association Board (IFAB) approved trials of video review in 2014. This opened the door for practical testing.

 

"With all the 4G and Wi-Fi in stadia today...we knew we had to protect referees from making mistakes that everyone can see immediately", stated IFAB secretary Lukas Brud.

 

With technology getting so advanced that all the fans in the stadium have a better view of critical decisions than the referee, something had to change. Or did it?

 

In September 2016, video reviews were officially introduced, and the system was used during an international friendly between France and Italy, and it did its job.

 

With the help of the new technology, referee Bjorn Kuipers correctly overturned a penalty decision.

 

After the game, Fifa president Gianni Infantino praised VAR, claiming, “we’ve seen football history here… we’re in 2016 so it’s about time to try it.”

 

A first round KNVB cup tie between Ajax and Willen II was the first professional non-friendly game to feature VAR. There was also a pitchside monitor allowing the referee to review footage from the field.

 

During this game, a yellow card was upgraded to a red. This was the first VAR-based expulsion in a professional game.

 

The first top-flight league to feature VAR was the Australian A-League when Melbourne City played Adelaide United in April 2017. However, the VAR wasn’t called upon in that game.

 

The Major League Soccer (MLS) introduced VAR during the 2017 season. Also in 2017, the Portuguese Cup Final between SL Benfica and Vitoria SC featured the system.

 

At this point it was only a matter of time before the technology became standard.

 

VAR was introduced in the German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A for the 2017-18 campaign. The Spanish La Liga and French Ligue 1 followed suit in 2018-19.

 

The system was also used in the knockout stages of the 2018-19 Champions League and was finally implemented in the Premier League for the 2019-20 campaign.

 

At this point most of the world’s major competitions were using VAR and it didn’t quite yield the unanimously positive feedback that the higher-ups expected.

 

Is VAR necessary?

Well VAR was called upon by the masses as everyone knew the technology was available and it could prevent refereeing errors such as Thierry Henry’s infamous handball against Ireland in 2009.

 

Hell, I was screaming at referees to “just look at the bloomin’ screen in the stadium” when I was a kid.

 

The issue that many people underestimated is not in the technology itself, but the individuals behind it.

 

For example, in a Portuguese match in 2018, a fan’s flag blocked the VAR camera, hinting it should be moved from behind the fans.

 

In the 2017 Fifa Confederations Cup, the system was criticised for “creating as much confusion as clarity.”

 

In the 2018 A-League Grand Final, Melbourne Victory were allowed an illegal goal to win the A-League Championship after the VAR malfunctioned and prevented the assistant referee to review the footage.

 

Unfortunately, mistakes just feel like they are happening far too often with technology that presents referees with all the angles.

 

Take the Premier League for example. In June 2024, Wolverhampton Wanderers proposed a vote to scrap the technology entirely after being on the receiving end of several controversial VAR decisions.

 

Wolves claimed VAR is “undermining the value of the Premier League brand.”

 

This decision went to a vote between all Premier League clubs, and with the backing of much of the football fanbase it was looking like there was a chance that the most watched league in the world would go back in time… technologically.

 

However, the final verdict was that VAR would remain, with Wolves standing as the only club opposed to the system.

 

It is clear that even with all this technology, human error does still come into play. And even with the adoption of new systems like semi-automated offsides, at the end of the day it is still humans staring at the monitor.

 

We are going to have to adapt, as fans, to VAR and its impact on the game because I think we all know deep down that it is here to stay.

 

Despite this, many fans are clinging onto the hope that one day we will go back to the good ol’ days where it was understood that referees make mistakes because they can’t be everywhere all at once. But, if we went back to that time, I’d give it 10 minutes before we’re calling for VAR.