Luton Outlaws - Independent Message Board for Luton Town FC

I do find it mildly amusing that everyone seems to hate VAR and nobody seems to have nailed down the exact problem with it.

When VAR was on the cusp of being introduced, there was an uproar about the amount of interruptions there would be and how this would affect the game. At this point, the powers that be tried to mitigate this by saying it would only be used for 'clear and obvious errors'.

This should have set more alarm bells ringing than it did. Because the term is vague enough to be meaningless in any sort of sporting regulatory context.

What we now have are huge debates about whether errors by the referee are 'clear and obvious' and multiple time is spent analyzing this, instead of the actual offense that has been committed. Because if there are going to be delays to game anyway, then what is the point in not just trying to get the right decision?

It's completely ludicrous that under the current rules we can have two identical situations in two different matches called differently by the referee, and then even after four minutes of peering at a screen in each case, we can legitimately have a different outcome in each case.

It's overengineered ('Check Complete' anyone? Why not just tell the ref what the correct decision should be?!). It's a mess.

If you are going to have VAR - have the video team make the decisions and overrule the ref. Why would one person looking at a monitor by the side of the pitch come up with a better answer than multiple people looking at the same monitors somewhere else? Have VAR make the calls, overrule the ref - no need for the silly wasting time watching videos at the side of the pitch. The referee's job is to get it right on the pitch first time and prevent VAR having to overrule him. The better the ref is, the less time this needs to happen.

The other option of course, is to just bin it completely. My preferred option and probably the preferred option of most people on here. The half-in-half-out approach currently in use is a complete farce and it's crazy it's been allowed to go on for so long.