Howard Webb has said much of the criticism of VAR is because people don’t like the outcome of a decision, as the head of the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) tries to rebuild trust in refereeing in the Premier League.
Webb, the chief refereeing officer, has announced a series of measures before the new season intended to speed up VAR decisions and clarify the criteria on which decisions are taken. But he has also pushed back against criticism of the video technology.
Managers and players have all been warned by the Premier League this summer that generalised criticism of VAR is undermining faith in the technology and increasing pressure on referees. Webb also argues that the criticism is often misplaced.
“Some of the criticism we get around VAR is simply because people don’t like the final outcome,” Webb said. “I think they expected when this thing came in to always agree with the final outcome. That’s simply not possible, that’s not a position we can ever get to.
“The criticism that we get around not rectifying clear errors is a justifiable one if we don’t do that and our aim is always to do that more. If it’s around efficiency, then yes we can always work to be more efficient. But if it’s around the fact that people don’t agree with the final outcome that’s not a fair justification if it relates to situations that are subjective.
Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept.
We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times.
NFFC will now consider its options.
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) April 21, 2024
“We’ve seen that time and time again where opinions are split on situations. The referee’s call pleases some people in terms of what they expect the outcome to be but other people don’t agree with it and if we flipped it then that ratio would reverse.”
Using the phrase “referee’s call” is one small tweak to the language around VAR that will be adopted in the Premier League this season, to clarify that referees – and not video analysts – have primacy in decision making. VARs have also been advised to spend less time scrutinising footage to look for possible infringements.
“We think that the fact we can use ‘referee’s call’ emphasises to the officials as well that one, they have to make a call, because they do,” Webb said. “Secondly to the VARs, [the message is] leave that decision alone unless it jumps out as being clearly wrong. Don’t micro-analyse, don’t be forensic around your analysis of the situation.”
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Other measures announced include new graphics broadcast in stadiums to explain overturned decisions to fans and a more lenient approach to the controversial handball rule where, for example, players will no longer be punished if the ball strikes their arm after deflecting off another body part.
In a first, PGMOL have also published the criteria by which it assesses referees’ affiliations before selecting them for a given match. The move follows the heated controversy over Stuart Attwell’s selection as VAR for Nottingham Forest’s defeat against Everton last season, where Forest accused Attwell of being a supporter of their relegation rivals Luton and argued he should have been barred. The published rules show that only a match “directly” involving a club where the referee has “indicated an active interest in seeing that club achieve success” would prevent their selection.