How VAR is changing soccer – and its referees
- Written by: Weekend Times
Being a referee is a thankless job. Despite the necessity and complexity of the role, referees’ decisions continue to be heavily scrutinised.
In the Round of 16 World Cup match
href="https://www.espn.com.au/football/story/_/id/49283101/england-end-mexico-world-cup-best-win-foreign-soil-their-history">between England and Mexico, two Video Assistant Referee (VAR) interventions occurred after the referee had allowed play to continue. The first resulted in a red card to England, while the second led to a penalty to Mexico.
Unsurprisingly, there was little agreement among fans and pundits in either case.
Following the game, England manager Thomas Tuchel reflected on the VAR intervention, stating:
the referees are just not good enough, the fourth officials are just not good enough – that’s the bottom line.
VAR is supposed to support referees
Perhaps no other sporting tournament in the world carries the attention and scrutiny of the FIFA men’s World Cup, which is entering its final stages.
Decision-making under pressure becomes the critical skill for a referee. However, decision-making in sport is highly complex and prone to error, even among the world’s best.
Referees must balance conflicting priorities of accuracy, fairness, entertainment and safety in real time, within a fast-paced, unpredictable and hostile environment.
Much has been made of referees’ potential biases, such as favouring home teams. While we can’t discount biases can occur, recent research has instead emphasised the influence of “noise” – the undesirable variability in judgements, influenced by factors such as fatigue, law interpretation, visual perspective and the environment.
We can all fall victim to this messiness in our decision-making.
To try to reduce decision-making noise, VAR was introduced to soccer in late 2018.
Generally, VAR has led to an increase in correct decisions: across 2,195 matches in 13 countries, one study found a significant increase in decision accuracy (from 92% to 98%) after VAR intervention.
Another found referees in the English Premier League overturned their original decision 95% of the time following VAR input.
VAR can use a range of strategies to increase accuracy that the field referee does not. For example, viewing multiple replays, slow motion, and different angles have all been shown to improve decision accuracy among referees.
However, even with VAR support, decision-making in dynamic sports such as soccer remains an imprecise science, and 100% accuracy or agreement can never be a realistic goal.
This lack of definitive agreement alongside interruption to the game is why VAR remains so unpopular among fans.
VAR also appears to be altering referees’ behaviour.
Preliminary evidence suggests they are making fewer line-ball calls that might be later reviewed by VAR.
For example, one study found referees awarded fewer red cards and penalties after VAR was introduced. Two small studies in the Israeli Premier League described referees’ greater mental fatigue during games that required VAR. Many also modified their decisions based on how they anticipated VAR would perceive the play, rather than through their own judgement. One participant described:
Now the situation is that referees run on the field just waiting for the VAR to make decisions for them.
These findings may not be applicable to the World Cup, however, and more high-quality research is needed to better understand the impact of VAR on referees’ behaviour.
Do we actually want ‘correct’ decisions?
Ultimately, we need to think carefully about what our end goal is.
Watch any game of soccer and you will observe hundreds of player errors: poor positioning, a badly weighted cross, a missed shot on goal. Most are quickly forgotten.
In contrast, referees are often held to a unreasonable standard.
Like coaches and players, referees cannot be expected to get every decision right. If we are chasing increased decision-making accuracy with VAR, we have to accept what comes with this – time delays and interruption.
The alternative is to accept a level of human error, or noise, in favour of adequate decision-making that flows within the game but might not necessarily be accurate to the letter of the law.
After all, if VAR catches a player offside by their toe, this is a correct decision. But whether this is what we truly want as fans of the game is a philosophical debate.
As Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic put it after his side’s controversial Round of 32 defeat to Portugal:
VAR kills emotions, it kills everything within you. We have gone too far with VAR.
The impact on referees
The debate around the merits of VAR will march on. But it cannot be used to abuse referees.
Referees across all levels are exposed to abuse, threats and violence, with many choosing to leave the game entirely. Our recent systematic review identified sports officials’ mental health was directly associated with verbal and physical abuse.
Read more: VAR was supposed to take the messy human element out of refereeing. How did it go so wrong?
It is worth remembering the majority of officials (such as those in community football) don’t have access to VAR technology to make their decisions. It is imperative we protect these people, and changing the culture around referee abuse is key to doing that.
Riki Lindsay, Lecturer at Federation University, contributed to this article.
Courtney Walton receives funding from Movember and the University of Melbourne.
Aden Kittel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
