Video Assistant Referees finally arrive in the Premier League this season, ready to correct ‘clear and obvious’ errors. At least, that’s the plan …
It’s the moment nobody’s been waiting for but most agree had to arrive at some point: the Video Assistant Referee is finally coming to the Premier League. This season, thanks to a colleague in an industrial estate in west London, referees will be able to correct bad decisions during a match and create a better, fairer style of football. Well, that’s the plan anyway.
As anyone who watched the Women’s World Cup this summer will know, VAR is no silver bullet for bad refereeing decisions. It can in fact make things worse, whether by causing delays or overturning referee’s decisions for the most marginal of reasons. In principle, though, it’s simple enough: the Video Assistant Referee is an extra official who watches a match from as many angles as there are cameras and informs the referee on the pitch if he or she has made a “clear and obvious” error in one of four crucial decisions (awarding a goal, a penalty, a red card, or in a case of mistaken identity). The big question is how you make that work in practice.
Written by Paul MacInnes
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/09/var-premier-league-season under the title “VAR VAR voom! The Premier League gets set for video referees | Paul MacInnes”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
