Newcastle fiasco does not justify VAR – that’s like asking an arsonist to put out the fire he started

What a weekend of poor refereeing. We shouldn’t be surprised; when VAR was still being proposed, I said that it would make referees worse because the cameras would obviously bail them out, or more importantly, they’d perceive it that way. Not because I have special insight but because it’s human nature to doubt yourself when a camera can prove you wrong.

And the evidence that is the case happened in the Aston Villa v Newcastle game when Lucas Digne clearly handled the ball inside the area when trying to close down a cross, yet referee Chris Kavanagh inexplicably awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box.

Assistant Nick Greenhalgh was 10 or 15 yards away and didn’t see the error. Of course there was no VAR in this round of the cup to rescue them and consequently there were some very poor decisions as the non-VAR referees were exposed to reality and found repeatedly wanting.

This absolutely is not an argument for VAR, as some have claimed. It’s the exact opposite. This was a decision that wasn’t in any way borderline; it was clear and very obvious. Pre-VAR it would have been called correctly but now referees simply don’t concentrate enough because they usually don’t have to. The system has clearly corroded their performance. That doesn’t justify VAR. It isn’t the solution to the problem it has caused. That’s like asking the arsonist to put out the fire he started.

I’m not alone in thinking official standards have dropped from their pre-VAR level. The very existence of their security blanket has made it inevitable. And when there’s no VAR commentators on TV and radio always say what a relief it is to have its curse lifted.

Ironically their mistakes have made some justify the existence of VAR and its ability to correct mistakes but I don’t think the purpose of the system was to make the officials worse and thus dependent on VAR, yet that’s what’s happened.

Yet as there were complaints from players and fans at the time decisions sometimes take, the PGMOL said that they’d back the on-field decision when possible. Even so, refs seem quite surplus to requirements as they wander around the pitch waiting to be told what’s happened, reduced to being a decision taker, not a decision maker. They even look physically less authoritative in a bank-clerk-on-the-pitch weedy way – the sort of officious pedantic melt that infuriates.

So let’s get this right. They’ve introduced a system that is only partial in its judgements anyway, which has made the refs worse and destroyed enjoyment in the game. They claim to have defaulted to not overturning on-pitch decisions, even though the very existence of VAR has made on-pitch decisions more questionable, thus making further refereeing by VAR more necessary. Except because VAR only operates in specific areas at certain times, the poorly-performing referees have to make myriad other decisions without VAR’s help in other areas of the pitch which means, as they have been made worse, all decisions have got worse.

Clearly, the powers that be are not going to lose face and back down now, despite the widespread view from all quarters that it’s made football less enjoyable. So given the increasing inadequacy of the on-field performance, why don’t they increase VAR’s remit to the whole pitch, all the time? We clearly can’t rely on the officials, so take all power away from them and use them only as VAR’s mouthpiece. If we accept the system is self-evidently making them worse but they are too egotistical to get rid of it, then accept you’ve ruined the game and just do away with them. I don’t see what referees bring in this halfway house situation.

As I write, a Liverpool goal was called offside when it wasn’t. Twenty years ago, that would have been called correctly. Similarly, Oxford had a perfectly good goal ruled out. Arsenal were called offside when they weren’t at least twice. So we can see that in the supposed drive to make decisions more accurate, they’ve made them worse. And they’ve inserted a coitus interruptus to the game for petty anti-football reasons that spoils all goals.

When it was being introduced, I thought in the end they’d bring VAR in for everything. It was the logical conclusion, because referees were always going to get less and less reliable. So the destruction VAR has wrought isn’t done yet. Only when crowds decline will anything change but with the culture of complaint being in vogue and a default more widely in society, while that’s the case, nothing will.