The Great Debate: What is the one way you would change VAR? | OneFootball

There’s only one thing to talk about this week.

Luis Díaz’s wrongly disallowed goal in Liverpool’s defeat at Tottenham has prompted the biggest inquest into VAR and standards of refereeing yet.

And now it’s time for our writers to have their say on how VAR can still be salvaged.

Let us know in the comments how YOU would change it.

Dan Burke

My biggest bugbear with VAR is still how terrible an experience it is when you’re in the stadium and don’t know what’s going on.

I think referees should have to announce over the stadium PA system a concise but detailed explanation of VAR decisions and how they were reached. We saw something like this at the Women’s World Cup, but I think an insight into the thought process behind decisions is still lacking.

VAR will never be perfect and incorrect decisions are unfortunately always going to be made, but I really feel like a bit more transparency would go a long way.

Alex Mott

Unfortunately I think the genie cannot be put back into the bottle when it comes to football and VAR.

The technology is here now and it’s here to stay, so with that in mind my change would be a longer-term one and to do with the standard of refereeing.

We can argue until the cows come home about the technology, about whether the pitchside monitor should be removed, about whether the referee audio should be played inside stadiums, about whether the ‘clear and obvious’ diktat should be taken out of the laws.

But at its core, the humans in charge of VAR just aren’t good enough at the moment. Committing more money to help getting former professionals or semi-professionals into refereeing could be a start, as well as making sure that the officials at Stockley Park are VAR-specific referees who are experts in their own right.

A rising tide lifts all boats and once the floor for referees in the Premier League is raised, everything else will improve.

Lewis Ambrose

Give me a challenge system! I watch a lot of cricket and I love Dan’s point: there should be clear, calm, concise communication not just for fans but also for officials. That audio from the Liverpool game on Sunday sounded so chaotic, there are so many voices and it’s little wonder things can slip through the cracks.

But another thing I’d take from cricket (and other sports) is the challenge system. Put the onus on managers and captains to decide when to use their challenges and take the heat off of the officials.

If a decision is overturned, you keep your challenge. If it isn’t, you lose it. Suffer from a howler late on having wasted your challenges? Sorry, you’ve only got yourselves to blame.

Joel Sanderson-Murray

Pandora’s box has been opened, I do believe it’s too far gone for VAR to ever be taken away from the game and Alex’s point is right – the people in charge of implementing the technology aren’t good enough at their jobs and that needs sorting.

As for the use of VAR or some form of technology going forward, I’m of the stance that it could do with being stripped back. For starters I would only use it for objective situations like offsides and would edge towards the semi-automated technology we have in the Champions League at the moment (and saw at the World Cup).

VAR can still be in place in some way but would then only be used if a referee misses something off the ball, for example a player punching another not in the referee’s eye-line, or if a ball goes out of a play before a goal is scored but was missed by the official in the middle.

For now, I believe it should only be implemented for objective calls or if it has to be used in the more subjective situations then it should be at the referee’s request (if they want to take a second look at something).

All this chat from three or four VAR officials putting doubt in to the referee’s mind in a conversation they can hear might have the opposite effect to the desired impact.