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Showing posts from January, 2020

VAR - Six Months Review...

So we are into the sixth month of VAR and so far it seems to have gone under the radar! Or maybe not.  Even when I was in the group VAR was something the PL referee group were working on for over a year. It was constantly called for by the tv pundits and it felt like every Saturday night we heard the same thing, "this could be cleared up in 5 seconds with VAR!" The fact was every one of us knew it couldn't. Games finish at around 5pm...by 10.30pm it is very obvious which camera angle showed the best view of a decision. Even when discussing at half time the guys behind the scenes would be preparing the videos and showing the best angle. This luxury of time is not afforded to the VAR during a live game. With up to 30 camera angles of an incident we knew that simply looking at one or two, clearing the decision as correct and then 2 minutes later Sky find a better angle that proves VAR wrong would never be acceptable. Whilst the referee is given the "you can only give w