The Premier League has confirmed 96% of on-field decisions have been made correct by Video Assistant Referee Technology, since its introduction in 2019.
Many think that the technology disruption to games and there have been many errors so far in its use, but there this isn’t to say that VAR hasn’t worked.
Before VAR was introduced, 82% of refereeing decisions were correct showing there has been an improvement since its inclusion, due to the 14% increase.
For this season, the KMI panel, who are a group of five ex-professional footballers, has decided that VAR has intervened correctly on 57 occasions but there have also been 20 errors.
Out of these 20 errors made 17 of these have been confirmed as a failure of VAR to intervene when the panel felt it should have done and one of these was a factual mistake.
This being when Liverpool winger Luiz Diaz had his goal was disallowed Vs Tottenham, when the VAR failed to properly communicate their decision that Diaz was onside when he scored.
Despite the decision being wrong, there was an unacceptable backlash towards those involved in the incident and speaking on the matter, assistant VAR official Dan Cook said: “I have never ever received any anything from social media beforehand but I’ve never been scrutinised as as bad as that was, so it was all very, very new to me.
“It wasn’t something I really understood, but the amount of social media messages that were coming through was unbelievable and it was just a case of delete, delete, delete as there was no point in reading any of them.
“I remember I had to step down afterwards and take two to three weeks out from officiating because of it, so yeah it wasn’t nice at all.”
Cook is just one of many that are in a position where they have suffered from abuse coming off the field and social media has played a huge role in this.
This is due to its growth and rise within modern society and it has become a platform for football fans to go onto and scrutinise officials for their on-field decisions.
Arran Williams who is the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion manager for the PGMOL has introduced a campaign called Breaking Barriers where people can go and try out VAR technology for themselves.
The series has taken place clubs such as Fulham, Liverpool and Wolves so far and will go to Bristol next in the hope that fans can get a greater understanding on VAR and dampen down its hostility.
Speaking on the campaign Williams said: “We have a VAR simulator where people can make decisions of penalties, red cards and it will come back to you with the correct decision.
“It’s a way of breaking down that stigma that var is this easy thing and that we should be looking back on and making decisions that are objective but football’s all about subjective decisions.”
The campaign is a sign showing there is now an attempt to link between relating officials to how demanding their job can be and give fans in within the sport, a greater understanding into the technology.
However, the introduction of these campaigns does not justify the level of scrutiny that officials receive in today’s game and its affects.
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