VAR makes football fairer

The argument

The case for video technology in football is made here by reference to the decisions it would have corrected, and to the standing disputes those errors left behind. Goalline technology came too late for West Germany in 1966 — some fans still refuse to believe Geoff Hurst's second goal crossed the line — and too late for England in 2010, when Frank Lampard's shot against Germany definitely crossed it. Both examples show what an uncorrected error costs. It is not only that a goal was wrongly given or wrongly denied in a single match; it is that the dispute never closes. Decades later the 1966 decision is still argued about, because there was never any means of settling it. Since its introduction to the World Cup in 2014, the technology has worked seamlessly, and those arguments have been consigned to the past. Players now know that if a goal is scored it will be awarded — the outcome depends on what happened rather than on what one official could see from where he was standing. The same logic extends to offside under the VAR system. Players know that if someone was offside when they scored, play will be brought back. That knowledge is what creates a level playing field: every team is held to the same line, and no side can benefit from an error that the officials had no way of catching in real time. Fairness here means consistency of application, not merely the correction of individual mistakes. The wider effect is on the arguments that follow matches. Video review ends debates about whether a team won fairly or unfairly, because the decisions that used to fuel them are now checked. And the more the technology is used, the fewer obvious fouls are missed by match officials, which reduces the number of disputes that arise in the first place. Because VAR makes football fairer in this way, technology is good for the game.

Context

The technology football now uses means that certain decisions can - in theory - no longer be awarded incorrectly. No more controversy over whether a ball crossed the goalline. All goals are checked for offside, eliminating offside goals being unfairly given.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The main counter argument to technology making the game fairer is that it comes at the cost of constant stoppages and reviews for every single goal scored, every single penalty award as well as other infringements. Judging whether a ball has crossed the line or a player is offside is not the same as judging whether a player has committed a bad foul or deliberately handled the ball to gain an advantage. In that sense, fairness is only relative.

Rejecting the premises

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter was among those keen to avoid introducing technology into football, claiming that it would only lead to frustration. However, even he changed his stance following the Lampard header against Germany in the 2010 World Cup. The old adage is that over time, good and bad luck will even out, so therefore even without technology, any team will get its fair share of good and bad decisions.