Football supporters remain thoroughly unconvinced of the merits of video assistant referees (VAR), with new research suggesting as many as 91% of them believe the game is better off without it.
More than eight years after the first trials of VAR in the English game, an annual survey by the Football Supporters’ Association shows widespread dissatisfaction with the system, including the tweaks that have been brought in to improve how it is used.
In a poll of more than 7,000 fans, the vast majority of whom attend matches, only 2% agreed with the statement that VAR “makes football more enjoyable”, and 3% said it made the experience of attending a match better, while 91% disagreed. Of those polled, 81% said they preferred watching matches without video technology.
While more than half of the fans surveyed approved of the introduction of in-stadium communication from referees to explain VAR decisions in the Premier League this season, other newly announced extensions of the VAR protocol were disliked. Only 21% of those polled agreed that VAR should adjudicate on whether corner kicks are awarded, a system set to be trialled at this summer’s World Cup. A majority were also against plans to check if second yellow cards had been correctly decided.
Whether the strong views of fans will influence the game’s decision makers remains a moot point. Competition organisers are committed to the use of VAR, as are the game’s biggest clubs. And while football’s lawmaking authority, the International Football Association Board (Ifab), recently announced a two-year review into the system’s performance, there was no suggestion of abandoning it altogether. The Football Association’s chief executive, Mark Bullingham, described the Ifab review as “looking at how we use VAR to our best and that balance between getting the big decisions right and not slowing the game down”.
For fans cited in the survey, the biggest specific problem with VAR was the delay in reaching decisions: 96% of those polled disagreed with the statement that VAR decisions are “generally resolved in a reasonable amount of time”. Meanwhile, 92% agreed with the statement that “VAR has removed the spontaneous joy of goal celebrations”.
However, 56% said they supported the use of VAR to determine offsides in the buildup to goals and more than 60% thought it should check for possible fouls.
