VAR: Has it improved football or has made it worse ?*

[Fortify]

The history of VAR

Football’s first real brush with technology began at the 2014 World Cup, when goalline-technology was implemented into some of Europe’s biggest leagues. It came four years after the controversy over Frank Lampard's strike for England against Germany being missed by the officials: the goal was not given despite it clearly crossing the line.

Frank Lampard's disallowed World Cup goal was a pivotal moment in the future of technology in footballGero Breloer/AP2010
VAR was used in a major tournament for the first time in 2017 at the FIFA Confederations Cup. In the same year, the Bundesliga and Serie A became the first of the world's major leagues to take the plunge with La Liga and Ligue 1 following suit a year later. The Premier League bowed down to the inevitable and implemented VAR in 2019.

FOOTBALL NOW is a new show that brings to light some of the global game's biggest issues, challenges, and debates.

VAR. Like it or loathe it, it appears to be here to stay. But has it actually made football better or has it added another unnecessary layer of complication to the beautiful game?

COMPLETE Source HERE

As someone who only casually watches football it's a tricky one, because like anything in life it hurts when the result goes against you but does instill a level of fairness (or at least fairly strict adherence to the rules) that could never be verified quickly before. However it doesn't solve every problem, as we can see situations where a player who is offside but not impeding the other team when a goal is scored still being up for debate. It does allow for and encourage better play, because players know that they will most likely be caught out in any malicious decision making. Is that worth breaking the flow of a game? I think it might be, but it should only really be implemented in the real top tier leagues.

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[gabbie2010]

I honestly agree with the existence of var, making the match fairer in every decision made by the referee, by utilizing var technology the referee's job is easier to make wise decisions even though it must take a long time.

VAR had really been assisting referees to take decisions and so far it's been very helpful especially in it accuracy of picking offsides, hard tackles, penalty decisions, hand balls etc it has helped in making fair decisions, however delays and the longer time to consult VAR at times affect the players after the resumption of play, fluidity of the game might be reduced due to the delays, referees should hasten their decisions while contemplating whether to consult VAR or not and take the appropriate decision without wasting much time.

[ololajulo]

VAR has really helped to reduce error in football, especially those that are goal bound. The only discontent is the delay during the VAR, sometimes it waste time in high tempo game and causes distraction. I also think there should be improved rule in football with some awarded fowl. It is still in the early stage in football and I expect improvement in use of VAR.

[Wakate]

The introduction of the VAR system has made football matches more interesting and the rate of cheating had reduced immensely. This had made each team more serious in what they do and there is no room for cheating or bribery. It has made the football federation to be more of honesty and reduced cheating. I am looking to have this also in other sport where the red can easily give wrong judgement because of race or colour.

[traderethereum]

Why do I smell a fixed match when I see a control room operated by their referees and judge whether the goal is clear or it is not clear and I think it gives a big chance for the referees to say it is a goal and it is not a goal.
The referees who are in the control room are not watching live the match but I do not know if their technology is very good enough to get every view on every corner side of the field.
If that so, I think they can see what is going on in the match and can give their opinion related to the goal.
But hopefully, the referees are clean from other things that can make the match looks controlled by them.

It's probably just the paranoid in you that thinks negatively of the improved VAR. There were wrong calls in the early implementations but I highly doubt it's match fixing. The review shows what happened from different angles and there are also coverage from media outlets with high tech equipments that we could use for comparison. There could still be controversial calls on tackles and fouls that could occur next season and beyond but less error on offsides and goal-line.

Maybe it's just a negative thought that automatically comes to my mind because I saw a room where several referees were also watching the game to ensure there were no fouls.
Therefore, they may say there is a violation even though there is clearly no violation on the field.
But hopefully, what I have in mind doesn't happen and the referee in the room can be neutral in carrying out his duties as a referee.
If that could really happen, the match should have run more smoothly and hidden fouls could have been discovered by using cameras placed in many places on the field.

[nullama]

The history of VAR

Football’s first real brush with technology began at the 2014 World Cup, when goalline-technology was implemented into some of Europe’s biggest leagues. It came four years after the controversy over Frank Lampard's strike for England against Germany being missed by the officials: the goal was not given despite it clearly crossing the line.

Frank Lampard's disallowed World Cup goal was a pivotal moment in the future of technology in footballGero Breloer/AP2010
VAR was used in a major tournament for the first time in 2017 at the FIFA Confederations Cup. In the same year, the Bundesliga and Serie A became the first of the world's major leagues to take the plunge with La Liga and Ligue 1 following suit a year later. The Premier League bowed down to the inevitable and implemented VAR in 2019.

FOOTBALL NOW is a new show that brings to light some of the global game's biggest issues, challenges, and debates.

VAR. Like it or loathe it, it appears to be here to stay. But has it actually made football better or has it added another unnecessary layer of complication to the beautiful game?

COMPLETE Source HERE

In my opinion I think VAR has made football a bit worse.

Now it's being used multiple times per match, wasting precious time. And sometimes even after the review it's not really clear what the actual action was.

I much prefer football with human referees only, and whatever they were able to see. That's why there are assistant referees, to help the main one.

At the end of the day I prefer the judgement of the referee while the play was happening, not after reviewing a video of it.

It's slowly turning into RoboCup, which is not at all as fun as football.

[Xxmodded]

The introduction of the VAR system has made football matches more interesting and the rate of cheating had reduced immensely. This had made each team more serious in what they do and there is no room for cheating or bribery. It has made the football federation to be more of honesty and reduced cheating. I am looking to have this also in other sport where the red can easily give wrong judgement because of race or colour.

Slowly many people interested with adopt VAR (Video Assistant Referees) on football match although early adopt many people dislike with match delay and waste many time, beside with VAR make football atmosphere not really interested and not original attention again. After few years with VAR used in football match right now many fraud and mistake missing by referees have fix as soon possible and not any way for player in football made cheating because VAR catch all did by football player. Maybe most effective with VAR how faster take final decision and make match not delay more time and keep interested to watch.

[davis196]

This forum thread has nothing to do with sports betting and gambling in general. Maybe you should move into another forum.
VAR made football worse in my country for sure. At the end of the day, the final decisions in VAR are made by humans and humans can make lots of mistakes. The football referees in my country are simply awful. I don't know whether they are corrupt or totally incompetent.
Maybe it's both. VAR makes the situation even worse, when you have incompetent referees.
Anyway, VAR is the future of modern football and it won't be going away. I'm sure that the VAR system will be improved by removing the human factor and adding artificial intelligence.

[FatFork]

VAR remains almost exclusively used only in the world's biggest tournaments and leagues. Those competitions with more limited budgets do not have the resources or equipment to make it economically viable. This is a critical issue in many parts of the world, where the number of domestic cups in smaller countries, compared to elite leagues, do not have the financial wherewithal to make it work.

There's no doubt that the advanced use of VAR in the World Cup has transformed the game and that many games have been decided through its use. But the jury is still out on whether or not it has actually improved the flow of the game or helped reduce the number of mistakes and/or unfair decisions that were made before it came into use.

It has been said that VAR has made the game of football even slower and more complex than before, and this is certainly true. But there are cases of VAR being used at the right time to get the game back on track when a serious error has been made.

[Gozie51]

This forum thread has nothing to do with sports betting and gambling in general. Maybe you should move into another forum.
VAR made football worse in my country for sure. At the end of the day, the final decisions in VAR are made by humans and humans can make lots of mistakes. The football referees in my country are simply awful. I don't know whether they are corrupt or totally incompetent.
Maybe it's both. VAR makes the situation even worse, when you have incompetent referees.
Anyway, VAR is the future of modern football and it won't be going away. I'm sure that the VAR system will be improved by removing the human factor and adding artificial intelligence.

I'm of this opinion also that it has rather added more pain to the sorrow of tricks by players simply because of the same human factor that is part of it. The emotional factor found in referees in the field of play when VAR had not been introduced is there there, afterall those at the VAR room are humans, referees with same emotions and likely to be biased in their actions to favour one team from the other. The Nigerian Morocco female football match the I made as same reference if we go back to watch the match. The question then is how will the human factor be taken out of the game entirely? Perhaps the VAR should be made to spot out those fouls by itself and award the appropriate offence to it for the officials to carry out the order. Maybe by calling the attention of the referees by beeping of alarm or something else that can give notice.

[doomloop]

I’m not personally a big fan of what we call soccer here in America (though I do enjoy champions league and the Real Madrid Barcelona Classico) but I do watch a whole lot of other sports and am all for using technology to enhance the game(s) to make them more fair. It’s not going to come without it’s on complications, but if we have the tech in my opinion we should always be using it to the best of our ability.

Maybe on some countries, football is called like that. Soccer. I too prefer to termed this ball game like that and like you I am not a super fan of the game but when I was a kid I like to play a soccer video game on our family computer although I don't watch it much often in the t.v as I found it boring but on the other hand technologies are created because they supposed to improve the quality of one's life and not to bring more harm. Same with that VAR technology that is being used in football games as it can help aid the field referee to make sure that judgments are fair, not unless if they intentionally game the system or fixed the match going on.

[boltz]

Let me tell you that since VAR has been introduced in Romanian league this year , we have more football problems than before. Why ? Well it seems in Romania , the VAR works how it wants , for who it wants and there is always a penalty out of nowhere. So for a first try of VAR in Romania , things are worst than before but I'm sure it will be okay in time but this is not VAR is suppose to work... . For other leagues it seems to work just fine for 3 years now but there are still leagues that are having the Romanian experience where the VAR is working when he wants.

[FlamingFingers]

VAR has improved and also made football worse in my opinion, in the sense that sometimes VAR is been made to favour some set of club, its clearly obvious in the English Premier league, and in the other hand it has also done good to football there has been some vital goals that VAR had given if there was no VAR such goals would not have stand, one of the problems about VAR is the time consuming, it kills the morale of the players when VAR will be taking up to five to nine minutes for decisions to be taken place, there is no way that VAR will be 100% accurate, human being are behind controlling it, there is going to be flaws!

[needeero]

definitely better

[famososMuertos]

I improve it!

...although sometimes despite VAR in soccer...$$%$$"

In any case, if I think that it is something that took away that simplicity that it had at the level of amateur soccer, it is not something so simple to implement yet at a global level, then there is a gap that did not exist and it is somewhat strange.

Before, the rules of soccer were fulfilled worldwide in any game in any corner of the world, it is no longer like that.

Although it also happens in other sports that you don't have the technology, so those of us who play soccer discuss the plays in the "bar".

Literally for Latinos we like to play with the word game VAR for BAR.
Anyway...rare this topic here, the VAR can make you lose money, even cause a heart attack...

[RockBell]

But has it actually made football better or has it added another unnecessary layer of complication to the beautiful game?

The game was becoming more complicated, VAR's introduction was much needed to assist in making and clarifying difficult important and controversial decisions in the sport. Football is still a beautiful game and we need to accept that as technology creeps in into other aspects of our lives, and other sports, the game we all love (football) will & cannot be left out. The technology will get better than it is currently and people who do not accept it now will grow into accepting it.

VAR have its own advantage as said earlier it can not be left out because when it comes to making some decisions the ref have to go to VAR for confirmation and once’s is not on your favor they feel the technology is bad with time the technology will improve better.