VAR. The How-To Book of Ruining Football

VAR; The Ruining Football How-To Book

Written By Noah Solovey

Sunday, March 10th, 90+6th Minute of Stoppage Time:

Liverpool were on a dangerous attack. Both sides were tied, 1-1, and this game could change the course of the entire season. Suddenly, Alexis Mac Allister was going to grab the ball in the box when youngster Jeremy Doku swung his legs high above his waist into Mac Allister’s armpit area. Mac Allister falls in pain and everyone in the stadium is shocked. Shocked when VAR outrules that it was a penalty. 

Everyone was fuming with anger. Jurgen Klopp, the manager was annoyed at the refs. The players were annoyed at the ref. Everyone was confused. How was that not a penalty? Was this bias? Soon enough, the game was over, ending in a 1-1 draw.

After the game ended one thing was more chaotic than everything else, the football news channels. GOAL, for example, reported on this, analyzed it carefully and it came out as an easy penalty call. Even the referee admitted after the game that it was a penalty, but what could he do now that the game was over?

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On paper, “high-powered AI technology that analyzes hard calls for referees and improves gameplay and controversial decisions” sounds amazing, but when you make that paper statement a reality, everything goes wrong. These days, football is evolving faster than mankind and modern, new, and improved ideas are coming rapidly to our faces, and we never know what to expect. I woke up one morning and read, “Blue card to be introduced to football” on an ESPN headline. I was frozen. What? Blue card? Some people think these “revolutionary” ideas are for the better, but the only better they are doing is making the beautiful game worse.

On September 1st, 2016, a revolutionary idea was put into place in a friendly match between Italy and France. The game ended in a 3-1 victory to Italy, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that this game was the root of VAR.

VAR, standing for Video Assistant Referee, was not only used in football but in many other sports, such as American Football, Cricket, Rugby, Tennis and more have all adapted to this horrible technology. You may ask me, why horrible? In this article, I’ll be explaining to you why VAR year by year is ruining football.

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Remember the good old days when Pele would score, fans would celebrate with each other, or when Ronaldo and Messi would go head to head scoring goals in El Classicos? There is a distinct reason why I call these the good old days. These days were the days when I referee made a call, and everyone would just go on with life. There wasn’t VAR, everyone just listened to the referee. If he made a decision, that decision was final. Now, not only is VAR making stupid decisions left and right, but VAR is injuring players, left and right.

The first flaw of VAR I’ll be discussing is its delay, which can lead to angry fans, but worst of all, dreadful injuries. The game we will be recalling here is Man City 3-2 Newcastle. Isak was clear on goal, but also clear offsides. The ref did not put his flag up, because VAR said no. The play went on and what do you think happened? Ederson, the Man City goalkeeper saved the ball, but Alexander Isak ran straight into him and injured him for the rest of the match. Keep in mind the goal was ruled offside. Though Man City would go on to win the match barely, this is one incident where VAR interfered heavily and changed the course of the game. Maybe if it wasn’t for the Ederson injury Man City wouldn’t have conceded two goals and would go on with a clean sheet. Let’s not stop there. Maybe, if Ederson didn’t get injured and ended up saving those goals and getting a clean sheet Man City would win the league on a goal differential of two, tied with Liverpool in points. (This is all just made up but technically if Man City had a better goal differential from not conceding two goals, they could possibly win the league on a point tie.)

So that situation wasn’t the only time VAR interfered and changed a game, in a decisive match between Spurs and Liverpool, Luis Diaz scored a goal, but VAR ruled it offsides. You may be asking, why is that so bad, offsides are offsides, right? This simply was not offside. Let me zoom into this goal a bit more.

January 26th, 2024: Liverpool FC manager Jurgen Klopp announced he’ll be officially leaving Liverpool at the end of the season.

March 15th, 2024: Liverpool is doing amazing are second in the league, and have only lost 2 games. 

When you piece these two statements together, you get a devastating result: Liverpool may not win the league just because of this one game where Luis Diaz scored a completely fair goal that was ruled offsides.

Honestly, as a Man City fan, I don’t care about this situation because I hope they don’t win the league, but I can admit that this was not fair.

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I cynically cannot start arguing about biased referees, but I can argue that VAR is a disgrace to the beautiful game, and ever since it was released, football has gotten worse and worse.

Look at these pictures below:

Now I want to focus on that Zlatan quote. Before I begin, I would like to give a bit of context. Pele, the best footballer of all time, played without offsides and all those crazy rules.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic stated: “If I played in Pele’s era, I would score 3000 goals. There were no strict rules.” I disagree with Zlatan highly. Pele played with fun football. Simple football. A beautiful game of football. Not the football we have now. Zlatan can state that he would crush it in Pele’s era, but he can’t state that he plays the beautiful game that Pele played.

When too many people try to overcomplicate something, my personal opinion is that it is a major problem. It doesn’t stay simple and beautiful, it becomes too much. Why can’t we play Pele’s football? Everyone would be happier, after all.

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Some people say VAR is helping football grow and become more fair, but when that was the reason it was brought into football, the results haven't shown that. Take example the Carabao Cup Finals, Chelsea VS Liverpool. Analyze this.

This simply isn’t offsides, and it lost Chelsea the entire game. Showing only 1 of the million hurtful mistakes VAR has made, the expectations for VAR haven’t matched the wanted results.

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After all, VAR is a disgrace to football, and if it wasn’t for VAR, I bet that Real Madrid might not have won as many UCLs, Man City wouldn’t have won the Premier League as much, everything would be entirely different.

Now tell me, do you agree with me? Because if you don’t I want you to know that one day you will be hit hard by a VAR call against your club, and you’ll come running back to this article wanting to thank me.