Broadcasting Live VAR Communications During Premier League Matches Dismissed as “Too Chaotic”
The introduction of Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to the Premier League at the start of the 2019/20 season has been met with mixed reactions. While it has been credited with improving the accuracy of refereeing decisions, there have been persistent errors that have led to calls for greater transparency between officials and supporters.
One of the ideas that has been suggested to improve clarity is to enable fans to hear the conversations between referees and the VAR room, but this has been dismissed by a member of the International Football Association Board (Ifab). Ifab secretary Lukas Brud admits fans should be able to hear the processes involved in making decisions, as demonstrated on recent ‘Match Officials: Mic’d Up’ shows on Sky Sports. However, Brud maintains that those conversations should not be made public during games, as it would be “counterproductive”.
“I was allowed to observe and see communication between match officials during a review and it is quite a chaotic situation,” Brud told BBC Radio 5 Live. “Not in a negative sense, but there’s many people talking at the same time and I think it would be counterproductive for anyone to listen to all those voices talking to each other. Then you have the VAR and the assistant VAR, the replay operators, the referee and maybe even the assistant referees and fourth official, so all of a sudden it becomes quite a chaotic experience.”
The chaotic nature of VAR communications was highlighted recently when Luis Diaz saw his goal at Tottenham wrongly disallowed due to an unprecedented communication error between on-pitch referee Simon Hooper and VAR Darren England. This led to even greater pressure to improve the current protocols, reigniting the ongoing debates around transparency and improving the experience for supporters in stadiums.
Brud believes fans would not benefit from being able to listen to the audio as it is happening but did add that a “green light” has been given for the announcement of decisions at matches. He continued: “We have given the green light to test the announcement of decisions to bring a little more transparency to decision-making, but we are not prepared at this point to open up communication live to the audience.”
Comparisons have been drawn with the straightforwardness of the processes in rugby and many have questioned whether similar methods could be applied across football. Brud argues not, saying: “They are different sports with different setups. We cannot compare by simply saying it is the same. In football, processes are slightly different. Football is different because everyone is putting a magnifying glass on every decision and every single word would then be analysed in the media and it would create a very unsafe environment for referees. They need to feel safe when they are focused on decision-making.”
It appears that broadcasting live VAR communications during Premier League matches is not going to be an option anytime soon, with fears that it would be too chaotic for listeners. While fans may not be able to hear what is being said between officials, they can take comfort in knowing that steps are being taken to improve transparency around refereeing decisions.