Spurs progressed to the quarter finals of the Carabao Cup with a thrilling penalty shootout victory over fierce London rivals Chelsea at White Hart Lane. The derby was full of fight and emotion from the players and mass celebration at its conclusion, with the only negative being that the fans couldn’t be present to create the fiery atmosphere a game of this magnitude deserves. It was however not the lack of fans that made the biggest impact on my experience but rather the lack of the use of the video assistant referee (VAR).
The Carabao Cup does not use VAR in its earlier rounds, and as a Spurs fan celebrating a late Erik Lamela equaliser, it dawned on me that I had not felt such positive emotion in response to a goal in a long time. While obviously there can be many comical reasons regarding Spurs form to explain this, the truth is that is was the first goal I remember being scored whereas I wasn’t waiting to see if VAR disallowed it before celebrating.
VAR has been brought in to better the game by improving officiating and to ensure that correct decisions are made, but it cannot possibly be instant or perfect. Football is a game universally loved for the emotional rollercoaster its fans embark on throughout a match, and its ability to continue to affect their emotions for the days that follow. For some, football is not just a game, it’s a passion and a belonging, and the outpour of emotion that follows a goal from your team can be unrivalled. With VAR being introduced last season this emotion gradually diminished. Early in the season fans celebrated wildly at the sight of a goal, hugging other fans while jumpng up and down, only to then see it reviewed and subsequently disallowed due to an unseen infringement minutes later. After the third or fourth time that you have celebrated a goal that doesn’t then count, you begin to stop celebrating the goal and instead wait until any checks are complete. By the time this has happened the game instantly kicks off and the moment and emotion that you could have experienced has passed.
The use of VAR means that when a goal is scored there is a hopeful cheer as many fans pause, or refuse to celebrate with vigour once seen, at the risk of being ridiculed or subsequently feeling that they have made a fool of themselves if the goal is disallowed. Football is about emotion. When you attend a football match the emotion enjoyed when the ball hits the back of the net is the moment that you’ve paid your money to experience, that sense of group delight and belonging, without which you might as well be watching at home. Even those supporters at home are hoping it is a goal rather than feeling that uncontrollable joy football can bring, so why lose all of this emotion?
A sport well known as the beautiful game; football is far more than a game in the modern world, it is a business. While sport is a test of athletic ability and skill which provides entertainment to the masses, the painful truth is that football is such big business that the financial rewards now massively outweigh those of sporting fulfilment. With this taken into account, the consequence of incorrect officiating decisions can no longer be met with the old adage that it evens itself up over the season, and are instead met with the threat of lawyers and lawsuits.
Football has a history littered with injustice notably Maradona’s ‘hand of God’ to eliminate England from the World Cup, and Frank Lampard’s ‘goal that never was’, despite the fact it bounced yards over the line. The introduction of VAR and goal line technology would have eradicated both mistakes and England’s international history could have been very different.
As individual games of football have become so much more financially profitable, the level of scrutiny of officiating, and the importance of each individual game has risen to exceptional levels. In the current climate therefore, it is of paramount importance that the right decision should be made at all times. With the financial implications, owners and clubs demand this to be the case and we now live in a world where money outranks the fans.
Its introduction should lead to a world in which referees are no longer vilified for each decision they make as they have less individual power over the game. If another top level referee who is looking at replays as the game progresses doesn’t agree with their decision, the decisions gets reviewed. The hope would be that by using such methods, the players will be programmed to play within the confines of the rules due to the fear of punishment following review, whereas pre VAR they would push the boundaries of the rules, using the ‘dark arts’ to escape detection and therefore punishment.
The principle idea of VAR to make the game fairer of course is correct. Memories of sporting injustice still haunt fans all over the world and certain clubs have had their own futures negatively impacted due to incorrect decisions. It is about balance and the experience for the fan needs to be considered just as the financial implication for the owners must. To use the Premier League as an example, much of the financial gain for those clubs in this league is from TV money of companies that bank on the popularity of fans wanting to view what is thought to be the most exciting league in the world. With the lessening of positive emotion attached to football since the introduction of VAR, this will only negatively affect the viewing figures and therefore be counterproductive.
It is rare that anything other than controversy over decisions made by VAR dominate the after match analysis currently. VAR is unlike goal line technology which, other than in one technical failure, gives a 100% correct conclusion. Due to the subjective nature of many rules in football and their interpretation possibilities, we can still get decisions made by both on-field and video assistant referees that they believe are correct, but most football experts don’t agree with. It has not stopped people criticising referees and if anything has encouraged more ill feeling as fans feel they still receive the wrong decisions even with the technology. As a viewer it takes away a lot of the excitement and the negative emotion from what fans feel are unjust decisions, outweigh the positive ones that are lessened by the technology and its delays.
Of course, in modern football we must use the technology available to ensure the highest standards and the correct decisions, but in its present unperfected form, questions must be asked as to whether the positives in doing so take away the raw emotion that made us all fall in love with the game. The Carabao cup has provided a telling reminder of what we once had and the risk we are taking in making the game more robotic.
Sport According to Nolan 