September 30th, Liverpool vs Tottenham, the game that had it all. A goal a piece in the first half and 2 red cards left a relentless 9-man Liverpool squad desperately trying to end the game on a draw. All until the last moments, when 6 minutes into extra time a Joel Matip own-goal brings the score to 2-1 and Tottenham Hotspur take the 3 points.
Sounds like a horror from Liverpool no? But what if I told you otherwise? The game felt more like a 13 vs 9, with Tottenham having all 11 players on the pitch, the 12th man in their home stadium, and the 13th? The referees.
A beyond-soft red card against Curtis Jones after his foot rolled across the top of the ball into someone’s ankle reduced the reds to ten. Less than 10 minutes later, Liverpool has a perfectly valid goal chalked off as offside. Soon later, a yellow card was handed to Diogo Jota for something that wouldn’t even constitute a foul, and this set up his sending-off when he received a second yellow, which was the result of an actual foul, leaving Liverpool with nine men.
I know what most of you are thinking, it’s just one game, and every game has some bad decisions just get over it. What if Liverpool finish second by one or two points, then these decisions cost them the Premier League? What if Tottenham finish 4th by one point, then these decisions kept the fifth-place team out of the Champions League. Up to this point, this loss against Tottenham is their only loss in the entire season.
To those unfamiliar, the Premier League uses Video Assistant Referees to review events and decisions after they are made on-field to ensure they are correct. VAR was first introduced in the 2017 season and has since been the target of many fan’s frustrations over decisions. Previously, there was just an on-field decision that wouldn’t be changed afterwards, leading to many questionable decisions. Now all on-field decisions are verified by VAR, though this has somehow led to perpetuated fan frustrations. But are these frustrations warranted?
The short answer is yes.
Many VAR checks end up with the wrong conclusion and thus finalize an incorrect decision which could have adverse effects on the game. How this happens is honestly a mystery and of course, human error will always play a part, but it shouldn’t be as abundant as it is. These referees are paid £70,000 (~$88,000) with an additional £1500 (~$1900) per match bonus and in any other corporate environment, the current levels of accuracy would get them the sack.
For instance, in the aforementioned fixture of Tottenham Vs Liverpool, the Reds were dealt an off-side decision following Luis Diaz’s goal that chalked them off a goal and ultimately resulted in their loss. The VAR team declared the goal as onside and went to report back to the on-field referees to give the goal. Somewhere along the way, this simple statement got lost in translation and the on-field referees resumed play. Around 30 seconds later, the VAR team persisted in their efforts to tell the on-field team the goal was onside. By the time they realised, it was declared as “too late” to halt play and the original decision, which was blatantly incorrect, was kept.
Adding insult to injury, the PGMOL released an official apology just 6 minutes after the full-time whistle was blown. Meaning they knew it was the wrong decision during the game and began writing during the game too. A little biased in my support of Liverpool but come on, it’s a joke. This season alone you couldn’t even count the number of outrageous VAR decisions on both hands. At the top flight of football that is a disgrace.
But often the short answer doesn’t paint the full picture, and other angles must too be considered. First of all, cognizance of the existence of ‘fan behaviour’, that being that no matter what, people will always find a way to complain about something bad that happens to their team, even if it is technically fair, is important. With this in mind, it is immediately evident that there will never be a perfect fix to the VAR system that would make everyone happy.
Additionally, one must also consider the alternative situations, say in a hypothetical world VAR was written off entirely, what happens then? Then it’s only the on-field referee decision that matters, and with a far worse view than the various camera angles set up around stadiums, it is almost certain to increase the volume of incorrect decisions. So if that’s not the remedy, what is the cure to this plague of inaccuracy?
Truthfully, there is no definitive one and, to a degree, it is just a part of sports. Not just soccer either, many other sports too must simply deal with the reality of error in officiating. For instance, recently a controversial call in basketball saw LeBron James denied a three-pointer despite footage showing his foot being behind the three-point line. Is it fair? No, not really. But if these mistakes lack obvious prejudice, then I doubt there will ever be getting rid of them. It is something sports fans must simply learn to accept.
Though there may be no perfect cure, there certainly are ways to mitigate the proliferation of these decisions. And amidst a flurry of recent controversy, the PGMOL seems to be taking action in the Premier League.
The release of audio and conversation of referees coming to a decision is a great example of these new behind-the-scenes changes. Despite revealing faults and issues in the organization, the audio releases have no doubt increased transparency and forced referees to be more accountable for their decisions and the way they conduct themselves as a system to prevent faults in the future. Accountability of individual referees seems to be of growing importance in their approach to addressing the vast mistakes in officiating this season.
For instance, earlier this season one of the Premier League’s most recognisable referees, Anthony Taylor, was demoted to the Championship for a week after a howler of a decision in a Wolves vs Newcastle fixture which resulted in a Newcastle penalty.
Anthony Taylor’s demotion, even if just for a week, showcases the changes are brewing in the background and perhaps better horizons lie ahead. Referee’s accountabilities are beginning to be tested and punishments are starting to be faced as opposed to the referee’s having the ability to make a season-defining mistake and move on to next week’s game like nothing happened.
Another noticeable change since a wave of controversy overwhelmed the PGMOL is noticeably longer VAR check times, for instance in the Aston Villa vs Arsenal game, the would-be late equalizer by Kai Havertz was declared handball after a 5-minute VAR review. It was a rather obvious call even on first watch that it was handball, and some people have been complaining about how long some decisions are taking now. However, I see it as a great thing, ensuring decisions are made the right way and ultimately have a higher chance of coming out correctly.
These increased VAR times don’t affect the game either due to the new ways extra time works this season, being the ones we observed in the 2022 World Cup. Time taken for VAR decisions is fully added on as extra time on the half. Sure, it might be a little annoying waiting longer, but if that is the tradeoff for a greater degree of correctness then I say so be it.
Yet despite all these actions being taken as mitigation strategies, even then the reality of officiating errors is still present. In Liverpool vs Arsenal recently, Martin Odegaard thought he was playing basketball over football and slapped the ball away from Mo Salah as it moved past him. Amazingly, both the referee and VAR failed to give it as a penalty. After the game, when asked about the decision, his teammate William Saliba stated whilst laughing: “Yeah, of course. Of course, it was a penalty. But I’m not the ref.”
Yet another instance can be seen in Liverpool vs Burnley, where Mo Salah was intentionally pushed into an offside position by a defender and as a result the goal, barrelled in by Harvey Elliot, was given as offside because of Salah’s ‘interference’ with the goalkeeper. When VAR reviewed the situation, no angle or video was shown of the defender pushing Salah, just a freeze frame of his final position he ended up in involuntarily.
I get many of my examples are decisions that happened against Liverpool, and my points could be reduced down to simply a salty fan complaining. To that, I would say that the fact that there are this many examples to discuss despite only, for the most part, referencing one team they happened against is more indicative of the true number of errors that plague the league right now. With 20 teams in the league and this many inaccuracies against just one of them, who knows how many permeate across the whole league?
So, whilst it is great professional leagues are working towards implementing changes to improve the correctness of officiating in sports, ultimately there will always be a degree of error present in sports. An unfortunate reality, that to the dismay of many fans, doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
