The Controversial Role of VAR in Modern Football: Evaluating Its Effectiveness and Potential Improvements

The introduction of the video assistance referee (VAR) is one that was highly hyped at the time it was introduced, as the expectation was that this would go on to ensure all human-related errors most referees make will be curbed and bring about more accurate decisions, but unfortunately, despite all the promises, it seems as though this introduction only makes the game decisions more terrible as they tend to keep giving questionable decisions in most matches.

I still don't understand how the VAR that was introduced to solve human errors is still being ruined by humans controlling or deciding on what they see. If you were a football lover who watches the Premier League often, you'd see terrible decisions on a weekly basis and nothing would be done to curb this, and at the end of the day, after such a decision as cost the other team, you'd see the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) come to apologize to the affected team, as though such an apology would turn back the hands of time or reinstate the loss points.

As of the last quarter of last year, the PGMOL has apologized for not less than 15 teams, and that's not including those that happened thereafter. This decision and their style of apology have raised loads of eyeballs, to the point where some teams like Liverpool and Arsenal were so annoyed that they felt like the best decision that could be made was to replay the match. Well, we've seen any of this in the EPL, but with what just happened in late January at the Belgian Pro League match between Anderlecht and Genk,.

In that match, VAR made a costly mistake that cost Genk their chance of a victory, as they went on to lose the match. Apparently, in the match, one of Genk's players, Bryan Heynen, took a penalty that he missed, and his teammates Sor took a rebound to score the ball, but after VAR checked, the goal was disallowed because Sor's feet were inside the box when the penalty was played. But what VAR failed to realize was that two Anderlecht players' feet were also inside the box before the penalty was taken, and since the goal wasn't allowed to stand, there was supposed to be a retake of the penalty that was not entirely cancelled.

The game ended 2-1 in favor of Anderlecht, and Genk took the case up against VAR, which came out in their favor as the council has not ruled that the game should be replayed, although the new date when the match would be relayed hasn't been stated. But I kind of like this decision, and I believe that if a team can get this right and have good evidence, we might most likely be seeing more rematches going on here and there.

I know this is more or less extra work for match officials and the players, but this should give the officials the need to check all boxes before making a decision, as that could be costly to the affected team, and an apology won't turn back the hands of time or make a difference. I'll love to see what happened in the Belgian Pro League get introduced in the Premier League as well. This naive PGMOL should sit up and stop looking for ways to corner a team into unpalatable corners just to justify their mistake.

I'm not saying that it's certain this would be introduced in the EPL; I'm only saying I'll love to see it play out, because I know if it does, the officials will vet all angles before making a decision, so there won't be a need to have a match replayed week in and week out.

That's about it for now. I hope you enjoyed the read. Have a wonderful day ahead, and stay blessed.

_{Thumbnail designed on canva}