What is VAR?
VAR stands for Video Assistant Referee. It is meant to help referees make difficult decisions, such as red cards or offside goals. Once a controversial play happens, the referees go to a small box on the side of the field, where they check VAR. The footage slows down so the referee can make a decision.
Controversial VAR decisions
Lots of VAR decisions are game-deciding ones. A time where VAR has made a game-deciding decision was when Liverpool played Tottenham in the Premier League 2024. Salah played a through ball to Luiz Diaz and he scored an amazing goal. VAR was called to decide if the goal was offside and the decision was offside and later the game was won by Tottenham. After the game, lots of Liverpool and Premier League fans were mad because the goal was not offside the premier league released the talk between the head referee and the side ref while they were at VAR and it was a controversial misunderstanding between the refs and VAR and they go the decision wrong.
How VAR changes soccer and how to make it better
VAR takes the fun out of the game by taking time away from playing the beautiful game and more time into deciding things. I make the game more controversial and less entertaining. One way to improve VAR is if they do NFL rules and each team gets one VAR decision each half.
RELATED STORIES:
- https://barcainnovationhub.fcbarcelona.com/blog/how-var-has-changed-football/#:~:text=The%20results%20from%20all%20of,especially%20in%20the%20second%20half.
- https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/38290857/how-var-changed-soccer-most-controversial-moments
- https://www.thenonleaguefootballpaper.com/guest-posts/490794/video-assistant-referee-var-how-technology-has-changed-football-refereeing/
- https://refrsports.com/blog/impact-of-var-in-premier-league-soccer
- https://bmcsportsscimedrehabil.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13102-024-00813-9
TAKE ACTION:
https://totalfootballanalysis.com/opinion/how-var-has-changed-the-flow-of-premier-league-matches
