Should VAR be used in football?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should VAR be used in football?
Position1 of 3›: Yes. VAR is a net positive to the game
Argument1 of 6›: Normal referees make too many mistakes

It's impossible to expect referees to get every decision correct while watching a match at full speed, often from bad angles. VAR, on the other hand, can avoid these mistakes.

The argument

VAR is a crucial tool to enhance the capabilities of the referees on the pitch to assess a situation. The case for it starts from the physical limits of the job rather than from any complaint about competence. A traditional referee has to be highly mobile on the pitch to be able to see what is happening between the players, which means he must keep moving with play while also trying to hold a clear view of it. However, it is a physically demanding task that impairs his ability to see everything, given that he only has one pair of eyes to oversee an area of 7140 m². The limit is one of attention as well as position: he can only ever focus on one situation at the same time, which prevents him from being able to see all possible mistakes that are made by the players. Two incidents in different parts of the pitch cannot both be watched, and no amount of experience changes that. VAR is a good technology to help the referee identify more mistakes and with more proof, because it removes exactly the constraints that limit a single official. It captures incidents from different angles, so an event hidden from one viewpoint is visible from another, and it allows for them to be replayed, even at different speeds, so an action too fast to resolve as it happens can be resolved afterwards. What the referee gains is information rather than authority. This allows a better fact-driven assessment of decisive situations that would otherwise create unnecessary controversy, since a dispute about what actually happened can be settled by looking rather than by arguing. The referee can back his decisions and the latter become more transparent.

Context

VAR stands for Video assistance referee and is a new way technology is used to help football referees on the field when they make decisions. They are mainly used for determining goals, penalty decisions, direct red cards or mistaken identity incidents. The video footage helps the referee to take a decision after viewing the video material. Anyhow, the use of VAR is controversially discussed as it could potentially underpin the role of the referee on the field.

Premises

[P1]A single referee cannot see everything across a 7,140 m² pitch with one pair of eyes and can only focus on one incident at a time. [P2] VAR captures incidents from multiple angles and replays them at different speeds, helping identify more mistakes with more proof. [P3] This allows fact-driven, transparent decisions that avoid unnecessary controversy. [C] Therefore, because normal referees make too many mistakes, VAR is a net positive to the game.

Counter-arguments

VAR is not necessarily able to correct all the possible mistakes of the referee on the pitch. It has a margin error of up to 38,8cm (14 inches) which proves that it is less effective than its proponents claim. It doesn’t allow for fully certain decision making due to the possibility of multiple interpretations. The interpretations of the referee can then again be seen as mistakes.

Rejecting the premises

Technology doesn’t improve humans.

Framing

VAR will decrease the mistakes that are made by referees.