To answer the question: the point of VAR is to justify poor refereeing.
They’re reviewing goals, (possible) red cards, (possible) penalties and mistaken identity. In the vast majority of cases the onfield decision stands, so whatever the referee has given (or not given) they’re essentially saying ‘we’ve checked and the decision was good’. The few decisions given by VAR have mostly been offside goals, which are:
- Objectively correct
- Not overturning an onfield decision (assistants are told not to flag tight calls that could lead to a goal)
- Not even the referee’s decision anyway
So anything where the referee makes a poor subjective call in a key incident is just getting backed up in real time, giving the referees a false impression that they’re doing a good job. The referee today was awful, but if VAR had awarded a blatant handball and overturned a harsh red card we would likely have got something out of the game in spite of a dreadful referee. VAR is correcting a very small number of offside decisions but mostly facilitating further decline in refereeing standards.
I would rather no onfield decisions are changed, but VAR assesses
everything during the game, and when the balance of wrong decisions goes too far in favour of one team the referee is replaced during the game, does not receive a match fee and is investigated for match fixing.
