VAR Helps Soccer Far More Than It Hurts It
Soccer purists may complain about in-game delays, but it’s worth it to get things right. Art: Hala Hassan
By LOGAN DAVIS-FOX
Imagine this: your favorite team in the English Premier League (EPL) is playing in a game that will decide the league’s winner. With one minute left, the opposing team scores a goal to give them the championship. However, it was later found that the goal shouldn’t have counted due to players being offside or a foul occurring during the build-up. Since there was no replay system in place, the refs got it wrong and allowed the goal, causing your team to lose the most important game of the season. You are outraged.
This is exactly what many English soccer fans had to endure for decades before VAR (video assistant referees) were introduced to England's top soccer league in the 2019-2020 season.
A video assistant referee has access to the game's footage. After the event of a “clear and obvious error” or a “serious missed incident” like a referee making the wrong decision when a goal has been scored, a potential red card being given (meaning a player is ejected from the match), or a key penalty, the VAR can stop the game, replay the incident, and make the right decision, either correcting the referee or confirming the on-field decision.
Some fans argue that this interrupts the flow of the game. However, VAR makes the EPL more fair to the teams and fans. It should not be removed but rather improved upon.
Refereeing hasn’t been at its best this season, with VAR intervening correctly on 57 occasions, according to Dale Johnson, a general editor for ESPN. Therefore, if VAR weren’t around this season, all these corrections wouldn’t have been made, hindering the fairness of the game.
Sky Sports points out that before VAR was introduced, 82 percent of refereeing decisions were correct. But now with VAR, 96 percent of decisions go the right way. This shows how VAR has improved refereeing decisions to an almost perfect standard.
“I was watching the Manchester United game,” said Akash Van Koert ‘26, “and a goal was scored by the other team. Then after VAR checked it, they found the goal scorer was marginally offside. This allowed Manchester United to go on and win the game.”
Some argue that this interrupts the flow of the game. However, since VAR is new and still changing, it doesn’t always make the right decisions. For example, in a Liverpool vs Tottenham Hotspur match, goalscorer Luis Diaz had his goal incorrectly disallowed. This caused Liverpool to lose the match 2-1.
This wasn't the only incident. Doug Mclntyre, a soccer journalist for Fox Sports, states that there have been 20 VAR errors so far this season, 17 of which was when VAR failed to intervene. Many people believe that this number is way too high, and because VAR is a completely replay-based system, there should be zero errors.
This is a valid argument, but since VAR was only added to the EPL four seasons ago, it is nowhere near perfect, and will be improved greatly as time passes to make sure no errors occur. Eventually, fans will start to accept this new way of soccer as technology becomes more integrated.
Another reason why some fans think VAR should be banned is that soccer is traditionally played with no breaks, except for a 15 minute pause at half-time. VAR breaks this tradition.
Whenever there is a pause in a match due to injury or a VAR check, extra time is added to the end of the 90-minute game to make up for the lost playtime. This causes matches to go on for longer, posing injury risks for players and dragging out the fans’ experience.
“I was watching a game and I checked the time and it was at like the 110th minute!” said Johnathan Beauzile ‘26. “I was surprised because I thought soccer games were only supposed to go until the 90th minute.”
While it is true that VAR makes for extended games, it is not the only reason why games are longer. Players often “flop” or fake injuries to try and get the referees to give a penalty to their opponent. This causes long stoppages in play, leading to lengthy added time at the end of the game. The league needs to deal first with flopping before blaming VAR.
So is there a solution? Yes, if VAR uses semi-automated or automated technology to make decisions, it should eliminate both the problems of human error and time wasting, especially when it comes to fouls and offside calls (certain situations when the attacking player is closer to the opponent's goal than the second-to-last defender.) Offside calls are often very tight, coming down to whose toe is pointing a centimeter further.
Almost every other sport in the world has an instant replay system to keep the integrity of its games intact. Therefore, as technology is implemented more and more, it only makes sense to use it to improve the fairness of the Premier League. VAR not only makes the league better, it also brings soccer as a whole further into our modern day.