VAR arrives in the Premier League hoping to fly under the radar and learn from past failings

Six months before the 2019 Women’s World Cup, referees were called to a Fifa conference and told they would be using Video Assistant Referee technology. It turns out six months is not enough time to make wholesale changes to the officiating of a major tournament; the referees returned to their different domestic leagues, almost none of which use VAR, and when they turned up in France in the summer they had almost no idea how to implement it.

The World Cup was a disaster when it came to VAR, broken up interruptions, delays and confusion. A decision was overturned every 1.6 games compared to only 3.2 games in the men’s World Cup a year earlier, and on average each reversal took more than a minute and a half. In a heated press conference in Paris, Pierluigi Collina’s eyes bulged as he fended off criticism that Fifa’s refereeing committee had used the Women’s World Cup as a guinea pig.

Six weeks later and this weekend marks a new dawn for the Premier League as VAR makes its debut, and what is clear from a visit to the Premier League’s VAR hub – a darkened room at its headquarters in Stockley Park, London, where every game this season will be monitored live – is that the English refereeing body (PGMOL) is taking a very different approach to Collina.

“If the technology makes us able to view something then we cannot ignore it,” Collina had said, trying to justify his fastidious implementation of the rules. In contrast the Premier League has a more laissez-faire interpretation and will not be searching for every big toe over the line that might be a foul throw. Ifab’s mantra of ‘minimum interference, maximum benefit’ has been taken to heart and the Premier League hopes VAR’s arrival will slip in under the radar; the clubs ultimately run the league and their priority is protecting the product of fast, flowing football.

First, the ground rules: VAR will be used only to adjudicate goals, penalties, direct red cards and cases of mistaken identity. It is advisory and will only be used for clear and obvious errors; the on-field referee will make the final call and can watch replays on a pitch-side screen if he wants to. In the 70 games VAR was deployed in the FA Cup and League Cup last season, a decision was reversed only once every five games and took an average of 84 seconds to complete, and the referees hope to lower that time as the season goes on.

Will VAR make the Premier League product better or worse? There will be fewer incorrect decisions altering the outcome of games – last season the Premier League ran at an accuracy of 82% for key match incidents, and that figure is expected to climb over 90%. Of course this is only a good thing if you think it is; there is a view that reducing human error not only interrupts the flow of a game but takes away the pub debate.

Yet the reality is that the football conversation will stay much the same. Most red cards will still be subjective and most dives will still be down to interpretation. Social media will not suddenly become a harmonious thought pod. Danny Mills will never stop sounding like an irked community support officer. Football’s frustrations aren’t being replaced, they’re just being repackaged.

One new controversy that the Premier League envisages concerns how far back in time the video assistant should check a passage of play before a goal is scored. If an offside was missed 10 seconds before a goal then VAR would intervene, but what if it happened 30 seconds earlier? What about a minute? How about two or three?

Several options were considered, including creating a time limit or looking back up until the ball was last out of play, but instead the cut-off will be a more subjective call by the VAR official of when a defence resets its position so that decisions are only checked in the “immediate phase”. There is no strict definition and when Premier League managers visited VAR HQ recently, it led Wolves’ head coach Nuno Espirito Santo to ask whether he should direct his defenders to avoid ‘resetting’ if they are convinced of a foul or offside by their opposition.

The PGMOL accepts the need for fine tuning and that there might be confusion and controversy in the opening weeks. It hopes to allay some of this with clearer communication than that used in last year’s FA and League cups: overturned decisions will be played on big screens at the 18 top-flight stadiums which have them – at Anfield and Old Trafford, an explanation will be read out over the public address system and displayed on the scoreboard. On TV, viewers can watch VAR in action ‘over the shoulder’.

Once VAR is up and running, perhaps most interesting will be the micro-changes it affects. Corner-kick melees will be monitored so there will be more penalties, at least until defenders adapt and become more hands off, which might lead to an increase in the number of goals from set-pieces. Encroachment in the box at penalties will now be reviewed if it affected the outcome, taking away any benefit for defenders – why risk having a missed penalty retaken? – and will probably mean the end of defenders stealing a yard or two.

The game will evolve and adapt in other ways we haven’t yet foreseen, but ultimately it will be a little fairer. And at the heart of all this is the reality that the Premier League is a slick, multi-billion pound operation that is not going to damage its product for the sake of enforcing the rules. The flow of the game is their priority, so much so that it’s hoped when VAR finally arrives in the Premier League on Friday night, you’ll barely notice it.

Video Assistant Referee.

VAR will check decisions throughout the game but will only intervene in the match if it believes the referee has made a clear and obvious error relating to one of the above circumstances. It will not be used for second yellow cards.

VAR is only advisory and the on-field referee will always make the final call. A screen by the side of the pitch will be available should the referee want to review a decision, although they don’t have to use it and can simply trust the advice of their VAR official.

It can if a penalty or a red card was wrongly awarded due to an act of simulation. It can also recommend downgrading a straight red card to yellow, and it can suggest a yellow card be given to a player who was involved in a red card incident – e.g. a mass brawl.

In stadiums, a VAR symbol will appear on big screens for each check, and the replay will be shown when decisions are reversed. At Old Trafford and Anfield, where there is no big screen, a PA announcement will be made and information will be displayed on the scoreboard. On TV, viewers will see what the VAR watches although they won’t be able to hear communication between the officials.