The Premier League have admitted VAR needs to improve after Liverpool emerged as the team affected the worst by incorrect decisions
Liverpool may be set to benefit from a major VAR change after it was revealed Jurgen Klopp’s side have seen the most errors go against them in the 2023/24 season.
The technology, introduced nearly five years ago, has faced significant criticism over its use with most angered by the lack of consistency shown. This campaign has been particularly bad for VAR with ESPN revealing there have already been 20 mistakes made and that Liverpool have seen the most errors not in their favour at four.
Wolves and Brighton have each seen three, with Arsenal on two while eight other clubs are on one. It comes as Premier League chief Tony Scholes has delivered a considerable update on the current use of VAR and the improvements that must be made going forward.
“VAR is and remains a very effective tool in supporting the match officials on the pitch … but clearly everything in the world of VAR is not perfect,” Scholes said, via the Guardian. “We’re aware of that and we know that we have work to do.
“There are two elements that I believe affect the whole reputation of VAR. [First] is the time that it takes to do the reviews, or to do the checks. We’re doing too many checks, we’re taking too long in doing them as well. It’s to a degree understandable given the level of scrutiny these guys are under, but the reviews are taking too long and it’s affecting the flow of the game.
“The second area where the VAR experience is poor is the in‑stadium experience for the supporter. It’s nowhere near good enough. We know it’s not. It affects supporters’ enjoyment of the game, and we know it needs to change.”
Something that has seen improvements in wait time is the use of semi-automated offsides with the Champions League utilising its effectiveness. However, that technology being implemented in the Premier League currently looks unlikely due to English football’s governing body alongside mixed reviews from trial testing.
“We are constrained in what we can do by Ifab [the body that determines the laws of the game] and Ifab is very clear at the moment we cannot use the audio,” he revealed. “My personal view is that we’ll get to a point where both the video and the audio is played live and then played afterwards to explain the decision. How far away from that we are, I don’t know.”
“It’s what we call the ‘edge cases’, where many things are occurring at once,” Scholes said. “You might have a lot of bodies in one place and it is the ability of the system to identify different parts of the body [that is of concern].
“For the vast majority of cases there won’t be an issue but in our competition we want to be clear that we are not introducing something that will give us problems in other areas.” Despite the majority, with Premier League managers certainly among those, not being a fan of its impact, Scholes is still largely in favour of its use with the Premier League chief also issuing his thoughts on previous complaints from managers.
“Before VAR 82% of the decisions [referees] made were deemed to be correct,” Scholes said. “In the season so far, that figure is 96%. VAR so far this year has intervened correctly on 57 occasions, 24 of those where VAR has intervened on a factually incorrect mistake on the pitch.” (With the other 33 subjective decisions such as reckless challenges.)”
“Clubs are aware that Howard Webb and his colleagues are open to calls at any point,” he admitted. “Frankly I don’t understand why clubs feel the need to go public.
“I think it can sometimes be a little disappointing. We’ve all got a role to play in the perception [of refereeing] and perception can be driven by things that aren’t always borne out by the truth.”
