1) Release the audio: Making conversations between on-pitch and VAR officials public would at least add a layer of transparency and go some way to warding off the increasing hoards of tinfoil-hat-wearing referees-all-hate-my-club conspiracy theorists. No more: “What were they thinking?!” because we’d know, whether we liked it or not. Or we could just bin it all off completely.
2) Allow officials to call back play once restarted: This seems pretty obvious. Had the officials at Spurs, who realised their mistake within seconds, felt able to pull play back from something as sacrosanct as – checks notes – a Tottenham free-kick, then your tea-timely email wouldn’t be banging on about all this. Or we could just bin it all off completely.
3) Semi-automated offside technology: This has worked just fine elsewhere and though it would not have made a difference in north London, it would speed things up for the oft-forgotten fans actually paying to be in the ground: Ansu Fati’s goal for Brighton at Villa Park on Saturday took well over two minutes of VAR checking for offside. Or we could, you know, just bin it all off completely.
4) No stills of incidents on pitchside monitor: The image of
Curtis Jones’s tackle on Yves Bissouma made the challenge look awful. But then static images at the point of contact always make incidents look worse. When referees are already looking at footage distorted by slow-motion, still images are unhelpful at best and misleading at worst. Just show the footage. Or maybe just bin it all off completely.
5) Get former players involved: A few ex-pros down at Stockley Park might help with incidents such as the Jones tackle, where a referee sees a bone-crunching studs-up red and a former player might see an unfortunate attempt-to-nick-the-ball-away yellow. How about some sort of VAR-based national service for players? Play 100 Premier League games? That’s 10 turns in the VAR booth once you retire. Or alternatively we could just bin it all off completely.
6) Managerial challenge system: Give managers two opportunities each half to get a VAR look at a decision. Goal against you stood when it shouldn’t? That’s on you. Time to upgrade your dugout refereeing decision analysis team. Or perhaps we could just bin it all off completely.
7) Stop penalising players for trying to play on: Brentford’s Yoane Wissa was a victim
of this on Sunday when hoofed into the east Midlands air by Forest goalkeeper Matt Turner. Players shouldn’t need to throw themselves to the turf and roll around in mock-agony for VAR to award a decision. So maybe we should just bin it all off completely.
8) Go Swedish: Over the years Sweden has given the world a stack of great innovations – seatbelts, zips, Bluetooth, pacemakers, milk cartons and the adjustable spanner to name but a few. These days the Allsvenskan is innovating by not innovating – it’s the last major European men’s top-flight division to hold out against video assistant referees. So when it comes to VAR perhaps we can take a leaf from the book of a country smart enough to give the world both dynamite and safety matches. AKA binning it off completely.