By the time you read this, VAR has been part of big-league football for several seasons. For some fans it’s a safety net, a way to fix obvious mistakes that used to change seasons.
For others it’s a constant interruption that kills moments, dampens celebrations and turns every goal into a grudging, uneasy affair.
This piece tries to cut through the noise. I’ll walk through what’s changed, what the data says, what managers and fans are telling us, and whether the tweaks coming in 2025 actually fix the problems.
How VAR Started and Why It Matters
VAR didn’t appear overnight. It was tested and rolled out in stages across competitions.
The basic idea was simple, use video replay to correct clear and obvious errors that decide matches goals, penalties, red cards and mistaken identity. In practice, that last phrase, "clear and obvious", has been the crux of endless debate.
Over the last couple of years IFAB, the body that runs the laws of the game and competitions have been tweaking how VAR is used.
They’ve tried cooling-off periods, referee explanations, and semi-automated offside tech. Those changes matter because they move the needle on two big issues, correctness and flow.
IFAB’s published VAR protocol and recent law changes give competitions the option to have referees explain decisions after reviews, among other adjustments.
What the rules and bodies are changing in 2025
Two things to note for 2025:
1. IFAB has made several updates and clarified the VAR protocol. Competitions now have the option to let referees announce and explain decisions after a VAR review.
There are also new clarifications about what can be reviewed and when. Those rule changes are not cosmetic, they affect how often VAR steps in and how transparent the process becomes.
2. At competition level, groups like the Premier League and LaLiga are pushing different approaches.
The Premier League has publicly explained some expected changes for the 2025/26 season that aim to be clearer on fouls and simulation, and to encourage referees to spot holding more often.
Meanwhile Spain’s refereeing body has signalled a push for a less interventionist VAR l. In short, they want VAR only for clear errors in the key match-changing categories. That’s a distinct approach from those leagues still asking VAR to be proactive.
The main changes are easy to spot. A push for more transparency in some areas, tighter control on how players behave on the pitch, and the never-ending argument over how much VAR should really interfare
The Simplest Stat We Can’t Ignore
VAR reduces some clear errors, but it lengthens matches and changes match dynamics.
A recent systematic review and meta-analysis looked at VAR’s impact on elite football and found measurable changes, fewer fouls and offsides, but longer playing time significantly, so in both halves and overall.
In practical terms, matches are cleaner in some ways, but they take longer and have more stoppages. That’s not opinion that’s what the numbers are saying.
Other studies are finding similar patterns, VAR tweaks player behavior (you see fewer offside traps called, fewer borderline fouls), but it also increases the number of stoppages and the total playing time. Those extra minutes add up across a season.
What Coaches and Managers Really Think
Managers are an honest thermometer for this debate. They feel the heat on matchdays, and their anger or grudging acceptance often reflects what fans feel in the stands.
Jurgen Klopp has been blunt. He said he would vote to scrap VAR in the Premier League because, in his words, the officials “are not able to use it properly.”
That line came after several high-profile episodes where Liverpool felt decisions went against them and it sounded less like a tactical complaint and more like frustration with the system itself.
Klopp has not been alone in that tone, many top managers have called out the implementation rather than the idea of video review itself.
Pep Guardiola has taken a different tack but landed at a similar complaint. He’s not said “scrap it” publicly in the same way, but he’s often described VAR as confusing and said the lack of consistent implementation makes it hard for managers to prepare or react.
He’s argued, in effect, that you can’t coach around a system that seems to change week to week. That uncertainty seeps into tactics and post-match psychology.
You can hear the same point from national team coaches too.
After some long delays and convoluted checks at Euro 2025, Germany’s coach called for quicker VAR decisions, not because he doubted the accuracy, but because the way decisions were reached harmed the flow of the game and left teams stranded in awkward pauses.
That kind of comment captures the central managerial worry. VAR's ultimate problem is less about making the right call and more about how those calls are handled and communicated.
When two of the biggest managerial voices say VAR is either used badly or confuses things, that matters.
They’re not just moaning after a bad decision, they’re pointing to a structural issue.
Does VAR Fix Football or Ruin the Fun For The Fans?
Walk into any pub on a matchday and you’ll hear both arguments.
You will here from a side saying “VAR saves us from blatantly wrong decisions. Goals that should never have stood are overturned, penalties that were missed are given. That’s justice.”
You can also hear from the other side shouting “You don’t celebrate anymore. Every big moment is paused for three minutes while we wait for a replay. The spontaneous joy is gone. The game feels like a lab experiment.”
Both points land. If your team benefits from a VAR correction, you’ll savor the correction. If your team loses a goal after a VAR check, you’ll feel like the magic was taken away.
This is not just about emotion. There’s evidence fans notice the interruptions. Major tournaments still generate VAR controversy.
Euro 2025 had a string of incidents that sparked debate about whether interventions were correct and whether the manner of those interventions destroyed moments.
Tournament-round pieces that reviewed VAR incidents found several high-profile calls that, while legally defensible, felt ugly in the moment.
Why VAR Still Feels So Complicated
Here are the main complaints people have, laid out simply.
• Inconsistency: Different leagues, competitions, and even different VAR teams apply the same rules in different ways. One week a handball is given; the next it isn’t. That unpredictability undermines trust.
• Subjective rules made more visible: VAR shines a light on subjective calls — handball, foul interpretation, offside by a toe. When human judgment is involved, replay often highlights ambiguity rather than resolving it.
• Flow and emotions: Celebrations are frozen. Players and fans wait. That changes how we experience goals. Goals used to be pure. Now they’re pending.
• Time added: Games take longer, some studies quantify this. Extra minutes change tactics, substitutions and fatigue calculations.
• A new bureaucracy: VAR introduces off-field actors whose calls are invisible and can be hard to explain. When the person in the stadium can’t explain what happened, the sense of arbitrariness grows.
All fair complaints. They’re not rhetorical, they’re practical and felt in stadiums every weekend.
What VAR actually gets right
I don’t want this piece to be one-sided. VAR has corrected major errors that would have decided titles, relegations and reputations.
Think of goals wrongly disallowed, or blatantly missed penalties. VAR has caught those errors. That’s the core argument defenders use, football is a big business, mistakes have consequences. Fairness matters.
There’s also evidence VAR changes player behavior. With cameras watching, players are less likely to commit obvious fouls or try to deceive with theatrical dives.
The studies I mentioned show reductions in fouls and offsides after VAR adoption cleaner in some ways.
So fairness improved in measurable ways. That’s not up for debate. The question is whether the cost interruptions and lost feel of the game is worth that gain.
Real examples that make people angry and why
You don’t need to go far to find examples. Big tournaments and big leagues all produce memorable VAR moments that fans will still argue about.
Take Euro 2024, for instance. There were several matches where a goal or a decision was taken apart under multiple angles and then overturned.
ESPN’s full review of VAR at that tournament broke down 51 games and showed how often reviews changed outcomes and how much debate they generated among supporters and pundits.
Those were legally defensible choices in many cases, but the scene of players celebrating, then seeing the joy vanish under replays, stuck with people.
Fast forward to Euro 2025 and you saw similar patterns. Germany’s group games included long reviews that forced big pauses, coaches openly complained about the time taken to reach decisions even where the verdict itself was accurate.
There was also that Netherlands versus France controversy back in the previous major tournament where a goal was disallowed after VAR judged interference despite the attacker not touching the ball.
Decisions like that provoke long, bitter conversations because the TV angles can look like opinions as much as facts. Those are exactly the kinds of incidents that fuel the "mood-killer" argument.
It helps to picture one moment a striker runs onto a cross and the stadium erupts. In the stands people reach for scarves, cameras record wide smiles, the songs start.
Two minutes later, the stadium is held in a hush while a ref watches a monitor and a VAR team debates angles.
When the referee eventually rules the goal out, the jubilation turns into stunned silence. The call might be correct by the rule, but the emotional sticks with players and fans long after.
That raw feeling is what many fans remember more than the technical justification.
Those moments are instructive. People don’t just object to being corrected, they object to how it’s corrected, sudden silences, unclear messaging, conflicting angles on TV, and sometimes an apparent mismatch between what people in the stadium felt and what the VAR team decided.
What refereeing bodies and leagues are trying and why it matters
There are a few big fixes being tried.
1. Referee explanations: IFAB now allows competitions to give referees the option to announce and explain decisions after some VAR reviews. That could humanize decisions and make them feel less arbitrary.
If a referee walks to the center and says “goal stands, offside by 10cm” or “goal overturned for handball in build-up”, people get closure. That’s the point.
2. Cooling-off periods: Some trials tried to keep certain stoppages contained, only allowing VAR for specific, game-changing situations. The aim is to limit interference.
3. Semi-automated offside: Technology that measures offside in finer detail can speed decisions and make them less subjective. It doesn’t solve everything, but it removes the need for 10-camera angle hunts for a toe.
4. Clearer enforcement priorities: The Premier League’s 2025/26 guidance is nudging referees to spot holding and simulation more actively. That can help reduce cynical behavior that VAR alone doesn’t stop.
5. Training and quality control: One of the biggest problems is the human element in VAR centers. Studies show younger or less experienced VAR officials intervene more and sometimes get overruled.
That suggests experience and selection matter, not just rules. Better training and consistent VAR teams will help.
Those fixes are promising. They don’t fix every problem, but they are sensible attempts to balance fairness and flow.
Does clarity help with acceptance?
Yes. People tolerate mistakes if they understand the process. The more transparent the explanation, the more likely supporters and neutrals will accept the decision, even if it hurts their team.
If referees explain decisions quickly and clear, you get closure. If you watch the stadium camera and a ref explains a handball was off the field or the striker’s arm made the difference, fans can digest it and move on.
Silence feeds conspiracy theories while explanations reduce them.
That’s why IFAB’s allowance for announcements matters. It’s a small cultural change that could shift perceptions.
A quick look at unintended side effects
VAR has produced side effects we didn’t expect.
• Tactical changes. Some teams have warmed to tighter defensive lines, knowing offside tech will catch stray attackers. Others have started to time challenges differently. Coaches adapt.
• Psychology: Players hesitate when they should celebrate. That hesitation can look robotic on live TV. Worse, it changes momentum the emotional lift a team gets from a goal is blunted, and that can alter how the second half unfolds.
• Broadcasting: TV companies and rights holders are now integrally linked to VAR. The replays, slow-mo angles and pundit debates dominate coverage. That can be good for viewers who like analysis, but it changes the feel of watching football as a spontaneous event.
So, has VAR improved the game or ruined it?
VAR fixed an important problem, it reduced a class of obvious errors and increased fairness in measurable ways.
But it also introduced a new set of problems like longer matches, interruptions, and fans not sure when it’s safe to celebrate. That’s the balance football is still trying to figure out.”
If your priority is absolute, corrected outcomes, VAR probably improved the game. If your priority is emotion, flow and the human poetry of a goal, VAR has damaged that experience.
What would actually make VAR feel less awful?
• Faster decisions: The current delays matter. If semi-automated offside and better VAR protocols reduce time spent on checks, you keep the correct call without freezing the stadium for ages.
• Referee announcements: Let the ref speak. A 10-second explanation after a review calms people down.
• Consistency across competitions: One set of interpretations is better than ten different ones. The more leagues align, the less fans feel cheated by arbitrary differences.
• Better training and experienced VAR teams: The human factor is crucial. Experienced VAR officials make better calls and intervene less unnecessarily.
• Limit reviews to clear, match-changing events: If VAR spends less time hunting for marginal edges and focuses on obvious errors, you reduce interruptions.
IFAB and competitions are testing or implementing many of these. The question is whether it’s fast enough and whether leagues will accept trade-offs like accepting a tiny margin of error to preserve flow.
VAR is not a monster. It’s a tool that help or hinder depending on how people use them. In 2025 we live with a cleaner, more corrected game in many respects. We also live with longer matches and quieter celebrations.
I’d rather have the right result and some lost sparkle, than have a season decided by a glaring missed penalty. But that’s a personal call.
If you care more about the feel of football, the unguarded joy of a goal then VAR is a serious nuisance and needs tighter limits.
People are listening. IFAB is changing protocols, leagues are experimenting and Managers are pushing for clarity. Fans, for all their shouting, have helped focus attention on the problems.
That pressure is producing fixes better tech, clearer messaging, and improved training. If those changes are implemented well, we might keep the fairness VAR offers without losing what makes football feel alive.
What everyone will be watching next
If you want to see whether VAR is getting better or worse this season, watch how people react in the stadium and on the touchline.
Pay attention to whether referees step forward after reviews and say what happened that simple moment of explanation matters more than a rule tweak on paper.
Notice the length of the pauses, a three-minute check that ends with a clear announcement feels different from a three-minute silence with no explanation.
Watch managers too if they stop treating VAR as a political tool and start talking about referee training and consistency, that’s a sign the debate is shifting from blame to solutions.
And also keep an eye on how leagues publish guidance when competitions line up their interpretations the noise goes down and the game starts to feel more like football again.
Listen to the stadium, watch the ref, read the league memo, and see whether managers change their tone. Those things will tell you whether VAR is being tamed or just rebranded.