Liverpool’s demands for Premier League referees to “release the tapes” and vague threats of “escalation” have turned Saturday’s VAR cock-up at Tottenham from another refereeing controversy into something resembling a high-stakes scandal.
We are now entering day five of VAR-gate with little sign of any let-up in the relentlessness of the takes around video assistant referee Darren England’s failure to award Luis Diaz the opening goal in Liverpool’s defeat in north London.
The PGMOL — the body that officiates all Premier League matches —released audio of the incident on Tuesday night, alongside the findings of a review, which at least proved it was a clanger rather than a conspiracy, but is unlikely to draw a line under the drama.
Much of the debate since the incident has focused on ways to improve VAR’s application but I’ll spare you my five-point plan for saving the technology because the obvious solution is simply to scrap it altogether.
VAR has made watching and following football immeasurably worse. It would be in the game’s best interests to hold up its hands, admit the experiment has failed and take a reassuring step backwards.
More than anything, VAR has robbed football of the unbridled joy of its singular purpose: scoring a goal.
No goal is definite anymore, no scoreline is certain and there is no guarantee the officials will make the right decision anyway.
Tottenham’s Ange Postecoglou was the latest top-flight manager to admit this week he has scaled down his goal celebrations to avoid looking “like a clown”, while any regular match-going supporter will admit that an element of spontaneity has been lost with VAR.
If managers, players and supporters can no longer properly celebrate goals, it should be obvious that VAR is slowly killing the sport.
Another problem with VAR that no amount of changes can fix is that while humans are involved, human error remains an inevitability.
Better protocols and training, more transparency and an improved culture at the PGMOL would hopefully ensure that a mistake on the scale of England’s on Saturday will never happen again, but mistakes will continue to come regardless.
Perhaps one day we will have AI drones gliding above the players’ heads, making 99.9 per cent accurate decisions, but until then there will be gaffes, and what VAR has given to the game (more accuracy overall) is simply not worth what it has taken away.
The technology’s use has only added another layer of human error to the process, while simultaneously creating an unrealistic expectation of perfection — therefore increasing the outrage when errors naturally occur.
Of course, for some, the outrage is the point. While the introduction of VAR is detrimental to the experience of match-going fans, it can make for an engrossing spectacle on television.
All the debate, line-drawing analysis and blind outrage are great for TV execs — who are, after all, paying the bills — by ensuring endless controversy-heavy coverage.
For the rest of us, the never-ending discourse is just another tedious consequence of the technology, which has also had the unwelcome and alarming effect of increasing the pressure on and abuse for the officials.
Since PGMOL admitted their “significant human error” shortly after Joel Matip’s decisive 96th-minute own goal, relatively little has been said or written about how Spurs and Liverpool both look like fabulous teams, primed to return to the top four under larger-than-life managers.
On a more depressing note, the grim racism directed at Spurs left-back Destiny Udogie on social media has also been a little lost, even though safeguarding players from online abuse is a far more pressing issue than referees moonlighting overseas.
Away from the fixture, Scunthorpe United are this week on the brink of liquidation after their owner withdrew funding; if half as many people cared about their fate as a VAR blunder, football in this country would obviously be in a healthier place.
For those of us who want VAR gone, perhaps England’s mistake at Spurs might start to move the dial.
Broadcasters might come to realise that VAR, for all the drama it facilitates, has dealt a serious blow to the integrity of the Premier League (imagine if Liverpool miss out on the title by a single point?).
It seems unlikely, and instead the conversation in the coming days will likely continue about further tweaks and moves towards more automation, a march towards a perfection that can never be achieved.
