Luis Diaz (in red, center) was ruled offside after conceding a goal Spurs in September 2023, an error that VAR should have corrected but missed.Photo: Premier League" src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/h7qFWz1aXwBdnlgoYkacZA-/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU3Ng-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/theguardian_763/66768abf4dd73b25166b1 1f135a19544″ data-src= "https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/h7qFWz1aXwBdnlgoYkacZA-/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU3Ng-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/theguardian_763/66768abf4dd73b25166b11f13 5a19544″/>
The closest England came to thermonuclear war was seven months ago because of a referee's decision. When referee Simon Hooper wrongly disallowed a Luis Díaz goal for offside and VAR Darren England failed to correct it, the initial reaction was heated and only escalated.
"They said it was important, that's very important," Gary Neville said on Sky at PGMOL [Professional Game Match Officials Limited] The statement dropped the acknowledgment of "significant human error" in ruling out the target. "It makes you wonder how many others have been wrong too," Jamie Redknapp noted. The following morning, Liverpool had issued a statement claiming that "sporting integrity had been undermined", supporters group Spirit of Shankly had said that "VAR and PGMOL are not fit for purpose" and the club's former striker John Aldridge alleged corruption. On Monday morning, Ed Balls and Susanna Reid discussed the incident on Good Morning Britain and we were probably spared the public outcry from MPs just because Parliament was in recess.
Related: VAR and human error combine in painful fashion for Liverpool | Barney Ronay
As the season nears its end and Liverpool prepare to play Spurs again on Sunday, we can look back on this incident from a different point in time, but only because the frantic charging of referees and VAR is now standard. This week we learned that VAR Stuart Attwell got two of the three controversial penalties correct during Nottingham Forest's recent defeat to Everton. But that hadn't stopped Forest publicly declaring within an hour of the final whistle that they "could not accept" Atwell's decisions, "had warned the PGMOL that VAR is a Luton fan" and were "considering [their] options".
Hooper and England's mistake was glaring, and Forest's approach to referees is particularly combative. The club is so concerned about the position that it has hired former Premier League official Mark Clattenburg consigliere until he resigned on Friday, saying his role had caused "unintended friction" with other clubs and had become "more of a hindrance than a help". But echoes of these two extreme examples of VAR errors can be heard virtually every week, whether from managers, pundits or fans. Why is that?
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It certainly helps that there is a stream of errors to which critics can attach their anger. Hooper has had a particularly inconsistent season, also failing to award Wolves a legitimate penalty in the week of the opening match, before denying Manchester City a potentially crucial advantage in their 3-3 battle with Spurs in December , which halted play as Jack Grealish headed towards goal. . Even the Premier League's best referees have had their moments; Michael Oliver, who will represent the European Championship this summer, missed a clear penalty foul in the North London derby last weekend. His boss, Howard Webb, said Oliver would be "disappointed" with his supervision.
However, if you infer from this that standards for referees are falling, you would be wrong. According to Premier League mid-season statist Tony Scholes, standards have never been higher. "Before VAR, 82% of decisions made were considered correct," Scholes said. "For the season so far that is 96%." Likewise, there have been fewer VAR interventions this season than last, and fewer VAR errors, including cases where intervention should have been made and was not. As one official put it this week, the accuracy of Declan Rice's decision-making is higher than the accuracy of Declan Rice's passing, but for many it clearly doesn't feel that way.
In the TV program Match Officials Mic'd Up this week, Webb tried to make it clear that referee errors are not only human errors, but also errors made by VARs. This is a necessary clarification because it is feasible and perhaps even understandable that people do not see it that way. VAR is a term used not only to describe a person's role, but also to describe an entire system, and it is the system that people don't like.
Multiple camera angles, blue and red lines controlled by cursor point, 3D view of body parts with offending areas highlighted, the finger pressing the earpiece. They all give the impression that an extra layer of complexity has been added to a game loved for its simplicity. Add to that the lifetime of time it can take for a video jury to be delivered and for many, especially match supporters, VAR has always felt like a counterproductive initiative.
For others, many of whom are already in the game, the change was necessary. Because the outcome of matches depended so heavily, it was crucial that mistakes were eliminated wherever possible. VAR has had a lot of success in eliminating errors, but it has not been a panacea. This also appears to be a source of lasting frustration.
Related: 'VAR is a Luton fan': Nottingham Forest scored on penalty decisions after defeat
The PGMOL and Premier League have acknowledged that the experience for fans has not been good enough. To change this, Webb wants to expand communication within the stadium, with a good chance that from next season referees will be allowed to announce why a decision has been reversed by the VAR. Semi-automated offside technology will be introduced sometime next season, to speed up decision-making and avoid people having to draw awkward boundaries (which will undoubtedly create unexpected problems instead).
That these changes have not yet been implemented is probably another reason leading to antipathy; improvements in the VAR experience are coming too slowly. Further adjustments will be equally difficult to achieve, including the ability to broadcast conversations between a referee and the VAR so that the public fully understands what is going on. This is the price Webb most wants, but something the lawmaker Ifab appears to be against.
Communication is a common thread for Webb. It's what he instituted when he successfully introduced VAR to the United States (it helps that it's a country where sports are often peppered with breaks). That's what he's accomplished with Mic'd Up, an informative monthly show effectively shot for social media. But he is trying to catch up due to a crucial mistake: the failure to clearly explain what VAR is for on the first day.
From one angle it's simple: VAR is there to remove the most consequential errors, errors that lead to goals (or no goals), penalties and red cards. But it is also true that no one, at least in England, wants VAR to replace the referee on the pitch. So we have the ruling that VAR should only intervene in the case of "clear and obvious" errors. But we also know that most referees' decisions contain subjective elements, meaning that one person's clear and obvious mistake could be someone else's marginal choice. All this leads to a situation where Jurgen Klopp could say in 2024 after a draw against Manchester City in which his side appeared to have been denied a penalty: [VAR] because you just make the right decision and don't think about the high bar you have to overcome to find the right decision? (The answer? Well, no).
Webb's job is not only one of communication, but also of training and further education. To that end, PGMOL has sought to move talented officials up the pyramid, such as Sunny Singh Gill, who in March became the first British South Asian referee to officiate a Premier League match. It also expands the pool of VAR officials by contacting EFL and WSL referees. Once appointed, these officers receive more training, more evaluation and more feedback than even three years ago. However, it will take time to make these changes happen on the pitch, and even then there is a feeling that it will not be enough.
Search YouTube for "VAR corruption" and you'll find no shortage of flashy thumbnails promising conspiracy and outrage. Watch a sports channel or listen to the radio and you will hear the same thing. Also a manager's press conference before or after the match. A seemingly simple idea, using technology to facilitate better refereeing decisions, has proven complex and created a number of unintended consequences. One is that the link between technology, civil service and football has proven to be catnip for controversial activists, and it may be too late to put that particular cat back in the bag.
