I'm not convinced by the arguments for VAR. We've seen it used badly on several occasions now and it's one thing for a game to go against you on a human error of judgement, it's even worse when the human's have this kind of technology to support them and they still get it wrong! Rather than enhancing decision making, it has the potential to worsen it!
We should be clear,
the purpose of VAR is not to improve decision making and fairness in the game. It's to have wider appeal to a television audience. Don't underestimate that. It's the TV companies who are pumping money into the game who want this kind of footage because it makes their product even more marketable. We'll be seeing re-runs of controversial moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades after the event. It's highly "newsworthy" stuff. The TV companies will be able to capture it and sell it on to a worldwide audience, across many different types of media. It will have other marketable uses too. Gaming technology for a start. It's gold dust to them - and the beauty of it is - most fans cannot see that this is the reason behind it. They are taking the game away from us as we know it - and most fans are going..."great, yeah...help yourself", because they think that the TV companies are trying to "improve" things!
The TV companies are only interested in one thing - making more money. That should be your starting point when evaluating VAR. Start there, then work back from there as to why they are doing it, and you might come to the right conclusion?
As to VAR "helping clubs like us" - that's just typical "victim mentality" speak. We are no more hard done to than any other club when it comes to refereeing decisions. I know it feels like it sometimes - but we're not. Every fan of every club will have their tales to tell - and they'll all feel that they've been hard done to and received rough justice more than the next one. But even if you don't subscribe to that view, even if you think that Sheffield United Football Club is unusually cursed in these matters, then VAR is not the great White Knight that will rid us of such a curse and balance up the odds in our favour. It will not help us any more than the next club.
The biggest problem with VAR though, for me, is that it's the thin end of the wedge. It may start out by just being for "match-changing" circumstances, but we will see it's use increase to more and more situations. In any case...what is a "match-changing" situation? It says above that it's for things like penalty decisions, goals, red cards, mistaken identity. OK that's just 4 things is it? There are many other situations which can lead to "match-changing" situations. So you can bet your life that the list will grow - because it will. And who is deciding whether something is a "match-changing" situation? A human being. The one's who apparently we can't trust to do the job without VAR in the first place.
Will it slow the game down? Yes it will. I see the excuses are already being made that "it won't take much longer out of the game than a goal celebration". Just stop and think about that for a moment. You may be of the opinion, as I am, that some goal celebrations are excessive already and do take unnecessary time from the game. Then again, I don't suppose any of us get too upset about that, when it's our team that have just scored. But think back to when it's been the other way round and we've been chasing the game and the other team take an age to celebrate a goal, or walk back at snail's pace for the kick off. Not nice is it? And what they are saying about VAR is that it won't take "much longer" than this. Is that really good news? I read a stat somewhere last season and, if my memory serves me correct, it was something like out of 90 miinutes the fans are actually only seeing the ball in play for less than 60 of them. So we are now introducing a system that will reduce that further.
It is only a matter of time before VAR runs the game. We won't need any offiicals on the pitch - and we won't even need any supporters in the stands. It will be a TV product - parcelled up and marketed to obese couch-potato TV audiences around the world - because that's how they'll make the easiest money.
And our gullible fans are stood on the side now, watching this happen, and applauding it.
(Just an alternative viewpoint for you to consider perhaps?
)
www.thestar.co.uk
