5 Reasons VAR Is Ruining Football

How simple is football? You can touch the ball with any part of your body except your arms and whichever team puts it into a goal frame more times wins. At a competitive level, it becomes a little more complicated with the offside law etc., but on the whole, the spectator has an easy job following the game, leaving them either happy or unhappy.

But with the rise of VAR, a new state of mind has taken shape: confusion.

Confusion is common in daily life: we experience it both at work and in our private lives. Traditionally, people would watch football knowing we would be safe from this emotion. But not anymore.

As happens week in, week out, a goal is scored, emotions are running high, but then something catches your eye: the referee puts his hand to his ear. What does it mean? Who is he talking to? Will the goal be disallowed? If so, why? Minutes go by and tens of thousands of people in the stadium have no clue what is going on. Finally, the goal is disallowed, but no explanation given. It is left to the commentators to interpret what happened. But what if you’re in the stadium? The fans are left in the dark.

Welcome to the world of over-crowding referees into one room. Although having so many screens at their disposal that they see, literally EVERYTHING, they still like to debate. The long, nerve-wracking confusion this leads to is torture.

Football has become a Christopher Nolan film.