The 2025/26 Premier League campaign has again thrown up plenty of twists and turns that has kept loyal football fans up and down the country gripped to the on pitch action, but sadly the topic of the Video Assistant Referee technology is just not going away.
With every passing week the controversies caused by woeful application of the rules from Stockley Park are simply getting more bizarre and whilst some fans are now even more convinced that it is by design and to favour the so called Big Six, it is most definitely calling into question the intelligence, incompetence and the ability of those who are paid to do this job.
With the Premier League and the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) only just releasing their most recent recap of VAR mistakes, those football fans who enjoy panda betting would have jumped on the odds available just knowing that their review would again point out a plethora of mistakes that should not have been made. These decisions had already left many in the wider world of football questioning why such a series of pathetic decisions were allowed to stand in the first place, but VAR seems to have taken their own incompetence to new levels in recent times.
A few weeks the assistant referee rightly flagged a clearly offside Florian Wirtz as he scored for Liverpool against Fulham, but VAR insisted that it should be overturned and that the goal should be awarded – why – because Stockley Park just realised that they could apply a 5cm wriggle room to semi automated offsides. This was obviously news to everybody, as this seeming wriggle room had apparently just not been used in very marginal offside decisions for the last six months.
Okay, the officials know the rules best…right?
Let us move on to the Manchester City v Newcastle United League Cup semi final then. Erling Haaland was ruled offside and Antoine Semenyo had his goal ruled out. The Norwegian hot shot was determined to be offside owing to interfering with play as he impeded the defender from making an effort to clear the ball. Sounds sensible, interfering with play is not a new thing. The problem was he was not interfering with play. Some argued it was a factual offside because he was behind the goalkeeper – but that was not the decision they made, and even then if this set of officials had heard of the 5cm wriggle room, he was arguably level with the goalkeeper and could not be offside.
So do the officials know best?
Many will continue to doubt that fact, especially then when we fast forward to last weekend’s round of action.
On Saturday, debutant referee Farai Hallam correctly ignored VAR’s friendly advice to award Manchester City a penalty for a handball offence. The referee was roundly cheered by all when he told VAR operative Darren England where he could stick that advice.
Move on to Sunday’s game between Chelsea and Crystal Palace. England was the man in the middle, and he decided to not award a handball against Jaydee Canvot until he got a word in his ear. Off to the monitor he trotted and subsequently he awarded the penalty. He then went to lengths to explain why it was completely accidental, it was not deliberate or a red card offence, and almost said how sorry he was to award it because he knew flat out the decision was a joke and VAR should have stayed in their box and allowed his decision to stand – but he did not have the strength to tell so.
The ‘check’ took almost two minutes with multiple replays and it has been reported that it took a ‘lot of persuading’. That is not VAR’s job, clear and obvious or for something the referee has not seen to give them an opportunity to review and change their own mind – not for them to be browbeaten into doing a u-turn.
The International Football Association Board had previously explained the rules and how it was not a penalty, so clearly referees do not know the rules and Stockley Park categorically cannot abide by its own remit on involvement.
Nothing will change though will it, give it another couple of weeks and we’ll have a repeat of all three incidents and the officials will conspire between them to come to a polar opposite decision before then contradicting themselves a few weeks after that.
