OFFSET YOUR WORLD CUP TRAVEL WITH GREENERTRAVEL
Date: 26th September 2025
VAR OFF
By Donald C Stewart
Let’s start with the positives.
A panel of former players, coaches, people from the media along with individuals from the Scottish Football Association and their membership clubs are involved in reviewing VAR decisions.
Secondly, that review panel does meet regularly in order to look at the decisions that have been made and are telling people where mistakes have occurred.
Thirdly, these mistakes are made public which demonstrate an openness and a transparency within Scottish football that has not always been evident, encouraged or welcome.
That need, to allow people the opportunity to make comment upon decisions made on field, is very positive. It does show that the Scottish Football Association has responded to the concerns raised by many people over refereeing decisions and transparency has been brought in.
The VAR review didn’t always exist. And to be fair, VAR has undoubtedly led to less decisions being mistakes.
How do we know that?
Because a VAR intervention which stops a penalty being awarded when it wasn’t due or an offside decision for a goal when it has been missed by the linesman due to them being unable to keep up with play, means that a mistake has been avoided. Thus, it has meant fewer mistakes.
Here’s the negative.
Recently, an SFA review panel looked at decisions for Rangers, Hearts, Celtic, Hibernian and Dundee United where VAR had or had not intervened.
It ended up with Rangers not getting the goal they deserved, Hearts getting one that they didn’t, Celtic and Hibs both getting penalties that they were not entitled to and a red card awarded against Dundee United player Vicko Sevelj which was later rescinded. The latter was when VAR did not intervene.
So why am I struggling to hold onto that being a positive?
Well, it’s a positive because it means that the SFA are coming out and making statements about mistakes that have been made.
But the problem with VAR is
Those are two factors that have always led me to believe that the inclusion of VAR in the set-up of a game has always been problematic.
I have called for it to be abandoned, removed or improved, many times and the recent transparency hasn’t changed my opinion.
Yes, of course, if I take the statement that it has led to less mistakes, I must admit improvements, but I don’t think it has made any better mistakes in their place.
These mistakes meant that Kilmarnock didn’t get the result that they were after, Hearts and Rangers didn’t end up with a result that was accurate, meaning more heaped on Russell Martin’s head, and Dundee United were denied 11 men on a pitch, which could have led to, who knows, a winner or changed the course of a game.
The issue is that VAR decisions are still made by human beings, who are… only human.
They make mistakes.
VAR was trumpeted as something that would remove the likelihood or even eliminate those mistakes.
The truth is, it couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, and never was going to. People shouldn’t have claimed that it was. But some did.
And now we’re dealing with the aftermath of that decision, that claim, that somehow football must wait about whilst referees go and look at screens, replay after replay, as they do within a television studio, until eventually an announcement is made.
What percentage of decisions are errors? I don’t know.
But there will be somebody keeping count somewhere.
Perhaps it is time to have an open, full and honest debate with supporters just exactly what this means.
Fans don’t want to end up stopping the game like an American football game that takes four hours to go through an hour’s worth of play. We want something that’s going to be slick and quick, and VAR is not doing the business.
So, do I still think we should ditch it?
Do I think it could be improved?
I don’t know.
Somebody’s yet to convince me.
Is the transparency something that’s to be welcomed?
Absolutely is.
I would actually argue for more of it.
I’d ask for referees to be trained in how to explain their decisions after a game has happened, perhaps explain those decisions a day or so after the game has finished.
But that could mean full time officials.
That would mean not expecting the local lawyer, doctor or dentist to don a whistle in a black costume on a Saturday afternoon to officiate.
That would be radical in Scotland.
But I think it would make a massive change to the game.
And it would attract more people wanting to be referees and increase the level of professionalism.
But who am I?
I’m merely a supporter; a fan on a terrace, shaking my head, hoping that my team doesn’t end up in the Premier League where VAR will spoil the flow of the game.
Posted in: Fan's Blog, Latest News
Tags: #VAR, oor Donald, SFA