Is Scottish football ready for VAR?
Over the last few seasons, the introduction of video assistant referees (VAR) throughout world football has definitely caused controversy. After seeing it have varying degrees of success elsewhere, the SFA think the time is right to introduce it in Scotland. Starting from the next round of Premiership fixtures, which kicks-off on Friday (October 21), VAR will be in place at all matches, but is Scotland ready to move into the digital age of refereeing?
Let’s look at whether Scotland has the appropriate infrastructure in place for VAR to be a success.
First things first, let’s clear up the situations where VAR can be called into action. It can be used in four match-changing scenarios, these are: straight red cards, penalty decisions, goals and cases of mistaken identity. VAR cannot get involved with any other in-game decisions.
Goals are perhaps the most important, but the most controversial component of VAR’s remit. If you watch a game with VAR, in the English Premier League for example, you will sometimes encounter a rather lengthy stoppage once the ball hits the net. This is because every goal is checked meticulously for both offsides and fouls in the build-up. This results in the VAR officials having to watch incidents in slow motion or painstakingly draw in lines to decipher whether a player timed their run ever so slightly too early.
In the Premier League, on average, a full VAR review takes 84 seconds. That’s almost one and a half minutes spent waiting for an outcome. If that happens multiple times per game, it can be infuriating for those in the stadium, as well as those watching from home. Penalties can be contentious too as no one (referees included) are totally sure on how to interpret the handball rule, as football’s lawmakers IFAB are constantly altering what constitutes a handball and what doesn’t. Straight red card offences and instances of mistaken identity are a little more clear-cut, although the latter is very uncommon.
Is Scotland ready for VAR? That is the question on the lips of many supporters at the moment. Well, there’s not a short answer here. All 12 clubs have been briefed on when it can be used, so they should be clear on how it’s going to work, but one of the biggest stumbling blocks will be communication with fans. This will certainly be an issue if the ground has no LED screens, as is the case for half of the Scottish Premiership stadia at the time of writing.
The SFA have confirmed that clubs will be able to make PA system announcements to inform fans of VAR checks, but it is likely to still cause confusion in the stands. This is one of the key areas where Scotland lags behind other countries where VAR is in operation. All but two of the 20 sides in the English top flight have screens which are used to display important information regarding VAR checks. This is likely to change over time, however, some clubs will be unable to afford having new screens installed.
The referees also seem fairly well prepared for this since the VAR switch-on was brought forward, having initially been set for after the upcoming World Cup, but clearly training has gone better than anticipated. Surprisingly, Scottish referees will have access to more cameras and therefore perhaps more angles than their counterparts south of the border.
In the Premier League, officials have access to five different cameras, but here they will have six cameras at their disposal, so from a technological standpoint, we seem ready, apart from one thing: we still don’t have goal-line technology, a simple and effective way of conclusively knowing whether the ball crossed the line.
It begs the question, why go all out on implementing VAR at what was a significant cost whilst not bringing in goal-line technology? For context, the goal-line technology system has only failed once in over a decade of use in England. Introducing this would be the final piece of the puzzle. Time will tell if this ever comes to fruition.
The biggest challenge is going to be acceptance, particularly from supporters. The introduction of VAR will only add to the scrutiny our referees are under, but as long as it doesn’t slow the game down too much, it’ll change Scottish football for the better. That is once any initial teething problems are ironed out.
Remember, VAR will be in action from this weekend starting at Easter Road on Friday night as Hibernian take on St. Johnstone.