Talking of Stockley Park, I can honestly say that place is having the biggest impact on professional football in my lifetime – and not, I may add, in a positive way.
Every week, I watch games with an open mouth, wondering how so-called refereeing experts can get so many decisions wrong.
The nature of football means subjective decision making is always going to be contested – handballs, penalties and what is or isn’t a booking. It’s impossible to agree on everything, and we have to understand that.
But red cards have to be given a more rigid framework for referees to work with, which would hopefully bring more consistency to decisions.
The laws around everything I have mentioned above in this column are far too ambiguous at the moment, and I think we have to remember what VAR was originally brought in for.
It was meant to protect and correct major or blatant wrong decisions – things like Thierry Henry’s handball versus the Republic of Ireland, Diego Maradona’s handball against England and Frank Lampard’s goal which crossed the line but wasn’t given against Germany, in the 2010 World Cup.
Incidents like that are examples of the kind of major wrong decisions which we can all agree on.
Unfortunately, VAR has become a monster, which is driving supporters away from the game, and things are getting worse – it seems to be involved more and more now, in every game I watch, and it is still not getting things right.
What grates with a lot of people in the game is that they are not asked what they think the problem is with VAR.
There are two other governing bodies of people in English football – the League Managers Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association – with members who have actually played the game or are currently playing and managing in it.
Even if the referees don’t want either of them involved in operating VAR, have they been asked how VAR could be improved – because they are the people it is affecting, not just the supporters.
If not, why not?
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