VAR a Farce

Photocredit: dailymail.co.uk

VAR was supposed to be what removed the grey areas. It was supposed to be what made things obvious and indisputable. Instead, it has only created more controversy and is slowing down the game no less.

At 2018's world cup, VAR was used in the way I was expecting it to be used. Hardly at all, but when needed it would be definitive once and for all what we were going to get. It has become obvious after the last couple games that that is not what we are getting from VAR any longer. First there was the joke that was the Everton v Tottenham game over the weekend, and then the Chelsea-Ajax game. Not to mention some of the calls were controversial in the Aston Villa-Liverpool game over the weekend as well. The calls aren't consistent, but worse, they seem to be the "Convenient" call to keep the game entertaining based on when is happened or who it favored. A perfect example being that when it favored making the game entertaining, they let Cesar Azpilicueta's offside go to make the game 2-2 between Chelsea and Ajax. But when suddenly Chelsea would have been winning, they conveniently call in an inadvertent hand ball on Tammy Abraham to cancel the goal. My problem with these is that in different scenarios, they likely call it the other way around.

I've seen VAR justified using one angle for one call and a different angle for another, just so they can get what they want as far as the game is concerned. Nothing being more awful then the no call for Dele Alli clearly handling the ball against Everton over the weekend. They said there were no exceptions, that if it's unintentional, too bad. That's fine. But he did handle it and they didn't call it. They claimed they didn't have a good enough angle. Several minutes after not giving Everton the penalty a definitive angle was shown where it clearly had deflected off Dele's arm. It should absolutely have been a penalty by the definition they gave.

The whole point about introducing VAR was to give justice when the refs have missed a call. Instead, it has given them wiggle room to manipulate the game so that the game stays entertaining. It also slows down the game which was one of the great things about football. The game doesn't stop. It does now. After all that activity yesterday, how did Chelsea only get 4 minutes of added time no less? Justice has not been given. The game is better off without VAR then with it in this state.