VAR to be dialled back for upcoming Premier League season

The Premier League’s referee chief has confirmed that the video assistant referee (VAR) system will be scaled back for the upcoming season.

In the last few years, fans have had to come to terms with the addition of VAR in the beautiful game. Across many other nations, it seems to be working out pretty well but in England, there have been substantial issues from overly sensitive decisions to the process taking up far too much time.

Fans 1-0 VAR

Armpits and noses alike have been penalised and used as reasons to give offside and completely alter the trajectory of a fixture, with the final decision often coming down to the ref themselves.

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Now, as per Mike Riley, things are going to be shaken up as the countdown to the new Premier League campaign continues.

“Fundamentally, we want the approach to be one that allows players to go out and express themselves and let the game flow,” Riley said.

“It means the VAR teams will not intervene for trivial offences and the threshold for referee and VAR intervention will be slightly higher than it was last season.

“We’ve introduced the benefit of the doubt for the attacking player so where we have a really close offside situation, we will follow the same process as last year but now apply thicker broadcast lines.

“Effectively what we have done is given back 20 goals to the game that were deemed offside last season by using quite forensic scrutiny. 

“So it’s the toenails, the noses of players that were offside – they won’t be offside now.”

The lingering VAR issue is still going to play an ever-present role in the new season but hopefully, small alterations such as this one can make it a little bit more feasible and slightly easier to swallow.

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