Okay, so I’ve been seeing a lot of debate online about whether or not lower division football leagues should have VAR (Video Assistant Referee). I mean, it’s a huge deal in the top leagues, causing all sorts of drama, but what about the smaller teams? I decided to dig into this myself, and here’s what I did.
First, I started by watching a bunch of games. I’m talking proper lower league stuff – the kind where the pitch is a bit bumpy and the crowd is mostly made up of die-hard fans and a few dogs. I wanted to see, firsthand, how many potential game-changing decisions were happening that could be helped by VAR.
I grabbed a notebook and started jotting down every dodgy offside call, every potential penalty that was waved away, and every red card that seemed a bit harsh. I wasn’t trying to be a ref myself, but I wanted to get a sense of the scale of the problem.
My Observations
After a few weekends of this, I had a pretty decent list. And honestly, it was more than I expected. There were a few things that really stood out:
- Offsides were a nightmare. Sometimes the linesmen were just guessing, and it felt really unfair when a goal was disallowed (or allowed!) because of a bad call.
- Penalty shouts were all over the place. Some were obvious dives, sure, but others looked pretty clear-cut and were just ignored.
- Red card challenges were brutal. It’s hard to tell in real-time if a tackle is just clumsy or genuinely malicious, and those decisions can change a whole game.
I wanted to go beyond just opinion. So, I tried to put on a researcher’s hat. It isn’t my expertise, but I attempted to find and watch recordings of local matches that might have benefited from VAR.
I spent hours scouring the internet, looking for any kind of stats or reports on referee accuracy in lower divisions. It was tough! There’s not nearly as much data available as there is for the big leagues. But I managed to find a few studies and articles that suggested the error rate was, unsurprisingly, higher in lower leagues.
I also spent some time chatting with fans at games. I asked them what they thought about VAR, and whether they’d want it in their league. The responses were mixed, which I totally expected.
Some were all for it. They felt like it would make the game fairer and more professional, even at the lower levels. Others were totally against it. They worried about the cost, the delays to the game, and whether it would ruin the “spirit” of lower league football. And some were very worried that their teams would lose more matches if VAR was implemented
After all this, I’ve got my own take. Implementing VAR is a massive undertaking. It’s not just about sticking a few cameras around the pitch. You need trained operators, expensive equipment, and a whole system in place to make it work. For lower league clubs, that’s a huge financial burden. It could literally bankrupt some of them.
But, on the other hand, the feeling of injustice when your team loses because of a bad ref decision is rough. It makes you question the whole point of the game.
So, my conclusion? It’s complicated. I don’t have a simple yes or no answer. I think it’s something that needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, maybe with some kind of trial system in certain leagues to see if it’s feasible. But throwing VAR into every lower league game right now? I’m just not sure it’s the right move.
