F365’s first-hand VAR check brings tentative PL optimism
Stockley Park is really quite nice. IMG’s studios stretch half-a-mile inside and, this week, like the rest of the United Kingdom, the industrial park was hotter than the surface of the sun. But it’s a calm and tranquil place where beanbag chairs sit by an artificial lake and where deserted, made-for-purpose roads lead to stylishly faceless buildings.
It’s ironic that this will soon be the focus of nation’s sporting ire, this sterile place where nobody has likely ever even raised their voice.
That’s because it’s also the home of VAR and, on Thursday, the Premier League and the PGMOL held a pre-season seminar introducing supporters’ groups and members of the media to their version of the most divisive initiatives the sport has ever seen. In fact, maybe this is the perfect place for VAR. West Drayton is nice enough, but the walk from the bus stop is quite a long way. Nobody could carry a pitchfork that far, let alone a burning torch.
But maybe neither will be necessary. VAR is a binary issue with a habit of provoking visceral reactions, but much the same could be said about football itself. A lot of fear about its instruction is largely informed by how it’s been used elsewhere and the assumption that it will just be imported into the English game wholesale. Yes, it’s here whether we like or it not and, clearly, some of the sport’s dynamics are about to be altered completely, but the Premier League is at least mindful of the imperfections which have given VAR its reputation.
It needs to be, too. Some of the supporters arrived on Thursday with their grievances pre-prepared and quite understandably so. It’s the end of a summer during which two international tournaments – the Women’s World Cup and the Copa America – have shown the system at its intruding and obstructive worst and the rational concern is that the Premier League is about to become stymied by laborious checks, unending delays and technological ambiguity.
But that’s evidently not what the Premier League want. They presumably understand the damage that could inflict upon their fast and furious brand and have reacted accordingly. The emphasis here, stressed during that joint presentation, was to find a situation of minimum interference and maximum benefit. In their own words – and you’re allowed to raise a cynical eyebrow in response – ‘they don’t want a level of intervention which takes away from the game’s human essence’.
It’s rhetoric, of course, but it has some substance. Of most relief to supporters will be the news that referees will no longer be expected to view every decision under review on their pitchside monitors. If it’s simple enough and occurred in sight of one of the on-pitch officials, VAR is allowed to advise and the game can quickly restart. Similarly, while assistant referees have developed the habit of keeping their flags down even in the face of obvious offsides – which in turn led to benign passages of play and wasted energy – now the directive is for them to immediately flag anything that isn’t marginal.
These are small steps, but they’re important ones. One of the stranger conversations around VAR is the conviction that it should try to imitate the role it has in rugby union. It’s antagonistic, for obvious reasons, but it’s also completely wrong. Rugby, with its popinjay referees endlessly gazing at screens, has embraced what football must now do everything in its power to resist. It cannot become a stage for vain officials, nor can it afford to disengage its crowds.
And the Premier League seem to understand that, too. It’s been known for some time that in-stadium screens will be used to alert supporters to VAR’s use. On Thursday it was also confirmed that, in the case of a decision being reversed, still screens and replays will be deployed to explain why. With the offside law, of course, but also with red card and penalty incidents. That will show a raised boot here and a shirt-tug there – it will still be subjective, but without the frustrating radio silence of the past.
It won’t rid the game of conjecture or opinion, the sport will still be riddled with the same one-eyed analysis, but the intention has never been to make football sterile. In fact, the Premier League seem fearful of that happening, of taking the heat out of a competition which is deliberately kept at perpetual boiling point.
Here’s the troubling part: I don’t hate it. I arrived pre-conditioned to be appalled and to sneer and snort, but a great deal of thought has gone into packaging VAR in a way which causes the least disturbance. Coaches and captains have been consulted; the referees have spent two-and-a-half years training for this season. I still don’t want it, I wouldn’t describe myself as a convert to the principle, but it certainly seems better than other versions we’ve seen.
And we did get to have a go. Every game next season will have its own dedicated VAR station, comprising one main official (VAR), an assistant (AVAR) and a member of the Hawkeye team, all with their own screens. The lead official sits in the middle of the three, his assistant to the left and a Hawkeye representative to the right. When incidents are being reviewed by the VAR, the AVAR takes responsibility for the live feed, ensuring that there are no gaps in the coverage. Meanwhile, the Hawkeye employee provides the angles and incidents on command, slowing the frame rates as needed and adding those spidery, 3D bits they use for judging offside.
The lovely Nick Miller is the VAR, I’m his assistant, and our Hawkeye technician plays snippets from last season, each with an incident lurking within. When Nick spots something he goes to the replays, and I continue to watch it live. We see a non-handball from Cesar Azpilicueta, what should have been a red card for Moussa Sissoko, and an offside looking goal from Sadio Mane against Bournemouth.
On the desk in front sit two buttons. A green one which creates a bookmark within the footage, and a red one which allows communication with the on-field referee. The room itself is more like a trading floor than anything to do with sport, with screens sprouting from every surface. On Saturday afternoons, when as many as five games are scheduled to happen simultaneously, it will hum with activity and become a hive of adrenaline and concentration, nerves and urgency.
It’s easy to be impressed – and not just because I’m reaching the age at which people are seduced by anything remotely clever. Instead, because there’s been an effort to protect the game. Not a huge amount, claiming otherwise would take us dangerously close to puff piece territory, but enough to have a certain faith in the impending change, and to believe that it will at least be the best version of something that most of us will never really like.
The proof will be in the pudding. Presumably those previous incarnations of VAR all came with promise, too, and it still resulted in knuckle-biting awfulness. The Premier League seemed prepared though. It’ll be another few weeks before we know for sure, but there’s assurance in knowing what they’re trying to avoid.
Seb Stafford-Bloor is on Twitter
