The Chief Football Officer of the Premier League has admitted that the current state of Video Assistant Refereeing is “nowhere near good enough” and has vowed to coordinate with football’s international governing bodies to eventually improve the experience for match-going fans.
Though Tony Scholes insists that data suggests match officials are now getting more decisions right than when the technology was first introduced to England’s top flight, he acknowledges that VAR reviews are taking too long and the process leaves supporters inside the stadium in the dark.
Scholes says that both Fifa and the International FA Board (Ifab), which implements the game’s rules on a global basis, have been reluctant to implement Rugby- and NFL-style audio communication from referees during games and have concerns over showing the same video replays that VAR officials are using to adjudicate on incidents on screens inside stadiums for fear of inciting problematic behaviour.
However, he says that the League hopes to eventually get to a situation where fans watching the game in person are made fully aware of the reasons behind a given VAR decision while suggesting that better training will improve other aspects of what has become a highly controversial part of the game.
“Clearly everything in the world of VAR is not perfect,” Scholes said of VAR as it’s currently used, despite the fact that he argued accuracy was now up to 96%. “We’re aware of that and we know we have got work to do. 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.
“The reviews are taking too long and it’s affecting the flow of the game and we’re extremely aware of that and the need to improve that speed, whilst always maintaining the accuracy,. By training development, we want [the VARs] to make a decision on the facts they see but not having to double or triple check.
“[Ifab] are very clear at the moment that we cannot use the audio and we cannot play the audio,” Scholes explained with regard to opening the communication up to supporters inside the ground. “My personal view is we’re on a journey, and that will come and we’ll get to a point where both the video and the audio is played live and then played afterwards to explain the decision.
“But we will continue to lobby them to get to a place where VAR is open, transparent and informative to supporters and all stakeholders as it is possible to do. One development that we are expected to come in, of course, is that the referee will announce their decision post VAR review to the crowd on the pitchside.”
There has been talk of the Premier League introducing the semi-automated offside technology that has been used at the World Cup and in the Champions League but Scholes said they were yet to be convinced of its accuracy and effectiveness.
“First of all, we don’t believe that will increase the accuracy of decision-making, he said while indicating that the League is still testing “a couple of systems” and that any move towards semi-automated offside is unlikely to come before the start of the 2024-25 season.
“We want to be extremely certain that it will improve the situation and not detract from it in any manner,” he said.