Matt Maher: More than a year on, VAR remains an issue

Rest assured, this is the last time the vagaries of video officiating will be addressed in this space.

Now nearly 16 months after it was first introduced into English football, the debate over its use has long become tedious, even to those of us in the media who, initially delighted at the stories it generated, quickly realised this was a discussion destined to forever go round in circles.

Were the press box at West Ham’s London Stadium not in a different postcode to the pitch, the collective groan which greeted the pictures of Stuart Attwell drawing lines before ruling out Ollie Watkins’ late equaliser on Monday might have been audible on the TV broadcast.

That incident, along with the late penalty awarded to Brighton against Liverpool on Saturday, formed the basis for the latest conversation on VAR and its impact on the game. It was the same conversation which took place the previous weekend and one which will only continue because – as this column will point out for the final time -–video replay and football are essentially incompatible.

That is not to say technology cannot assist the game. Indeed, aside from determining whether or not the ball has crossed the goal-line, ruling on offside calls is the one area where it actually could make a difference.

Yet right now the process for determining the very close decisions is frustratingly slow. On Monday night, it took more than two-and-a-half minutes to determine Watkins’ shirt sleeve was just marginally in front of Vladimir Coufal.

Bringing in a greater margin for error, similar to that used in cricket or by the Dutch FA, might appear a solution to speed up the process.

In the Netherlands, the decision remains with the on-field officials if the lines drawn between the attacking player and last defender touch. If used in the Premier League this season, it would have seen five out of the 14 goals disallowed by VAR for offside stand.

But while it might seem a fairer method, it does not solve the issue of decisions coming down to millimetres and taking several minutes to determine, or answer the nagging question of how – in those ultra-tight calls – an official can be certain they are drawing lines at the precise moment the ball leaves a player’s foot?

Better technology is on the way, we are told, which will allow offside decisions to be made in seconds, perhaps in time for the 2022 World Cup. It promises to be a long two years until then, however, to ponder whether the existing systems can ever make decisions with an accuracy and speed anywhere close to satisfactory.

There is likely advance in technology, meanwhile, which can solve the issue of VAR’s intervention in subjective calls.

When first introduced at the start of last season, we were told it would only intervene to correct officiating errors that were clear and obvious. Much as that sounded a sensible policy, it quickly fell apart because ‘clear and obvious’ can never be clearly defined and referees, humans that they are, have differing views on exactly what it means.

That is why Villa have a penalty decision reversed one weekend because Trezeguet is deemed to have exaggerated contact, while Brighton have a penalty awarded the following week because Danny Welbeck, er, exaggerates contact. A day later, Wolves’ Adama Traore is duly booked for diving and the video ref opts not to intervene despite the incident looking rather similar.

One has always wondered why football’s lawmakers did not look across the Atlantic to the lessons of the NFL when deciding whether to bring in VAR. American football has used video replay for years yet, tellingly, it is not used on fouls. They did try it one season but it quickly became a mess. Too subjective, they realised.

The other thing the NFL has revealed about video replay is that once you allow it into a sport it can quickly start to rewrite the rule book.

A frequent argument by those who defend VAR is that the technology is not the problem, rather the laws of the game. Which is fine, until you consider how difficult it would be to amend those laws while delivering the clarity slow-motion replay demands.

For instance, contrary to the popular belief of many pundits, the word ‘contact’ does not appear anywhere in the sport’s rule book when it comes to the awarding of fouls.

But if it wants VAR to help determine what is or isn’t a penalty, maybe it is about time it did? Chaos, with countless spot-kicks awarded a game, would be the likely result, yet on the plus side the decisions would at least be clear.

Clearly, a move toward technology having a lighter touch on proceedings seems the most sensible option, other than simply scrapping VAR altogether, something which would delight this writer but is admittedly highly unlikely.

Accurate assessments of what precisely what impact this is all having on football’s popularity is difficult at a time when supporters remain shut out of stadiums.

Yet it is certainly something to monitor when they do return because the sport is changing and while some fans won’t mind, many will as the rhythm of live matches becomes very different and the unbridled joy of a last-gasp goal is tempered by the fear Stockley Park may about to get involved.

It is only fan power which could see VAR removed. For now, there really is nothing more to say.