This thought-provoking book by Daisy Christodoulou strongly challenges the view that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is the way forward for football.
Many people believe that since it’s introduction in 2019 VAR has been a disaster: players hate it, pundits criticise it’s decisions and fans have coined the chant ‘it’s not football any more’ to describe its effect on the game.
Christodoulou is a season ticket holder at West Ham, an expert in assessment and testing and brings some telling insights into the challenge of reaching good judgements using VAR.
Under the current VAR system subjective decisions, like judgements about the severity of a foul, should be overturned only if the original decision was a ‘clear and obvious error’.
What is a ‘clear and obvious error’? Chris Foy, a former referee who was involved in the implementation of VAR, explained that is the kind of incident ‘where everyone goes “crikey”’.
The theory behind setting a high bar for the review of subjective decisions was that nobody wanted every game to be re-refereed from the video room.
There will always be decisions you can argue about, but the ‘clear and obvious’ bar was designed to ensure that VAR would be used sparingly to overturn obviously bad decisions. But this is not what has happened.
An example of this was in the Euro 2024 semi-final when Harry Kane was awarded a penalty after colliding with Denzil Dumfries. ITV’s refereeing expert Christina Unkel commented ‘no suggestion from the VAR for a recommendation for a penalty…It should be check and release’.
However, although the referee had initially not awarded a penalty VAR suggested the referee check the monitor and then he awards the penalty.
Once a referee is called to a pitch side monitor, they are likely to award a penalty. It was the perfect example of why ‘clear and obvious’ isn’t clear and obvious. If qualified referees can disagree profoundly about what a ‘clear and obvious’ error is, how can anything about the decision be said to be clear and obvious?
Technology has not necessarily improved decision-making. Slow-motion replays have actually made decision-making worse. Researchers have shown that people do perceive an action as more intentional when they see it in slow-motion rather than real time.
Its now obvious for many of us that the emotional turmoil of supporters waiting for a VAR decision is ruining the game at the top level. VAR is killing the joy in the game. Fans experience delayed gratification or delayed exasperation. The ecstasy of the goal moment is now denied us forever.
Below the Premier League (PL) everything continues as before. The game retains an authenticity, now removed from the top level.
Unfortunately it is unlikely that the PL will stop using VAR due to vested interests. However, many people believe that the introduction of VAR below the PL should be resisted for the good of the game.
Christodoulou makes many convincing arguments that VAR isn’t working. For those who believe in VAR her methodological analysis will prove challenging.
She says the argument in favour of technology in sport is that because humans make errors, they need help. But VAR has not ruled out human error, in fact, it has created brand new mistakes, a type we have not seen before.
Christodoulou has produced an excellent critique of VAR and given examples of how it might be improved but ultimately she believes that VAR has solved some problems but it has left us with a whole set of new ones, and the game is no fairer as a consequence.
I Can’t Stop Thinking About VAR by Daisy Christodoulou. Published by Swift Press. Price 14.99.
A version of this review first appeared in the September/October 2025 edition of Late Tackle magazine.
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