Premier League issues plan to improve VAR ahead of new season

The new rules will give more decision-making control to the on-field referee with the threshold for VAR intervention being raised

The Premier League has issued a six-point plan to tackle the criticism of VAR. (Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has said VAR officials “just need everyone’s patience to get it right”, as clubs and managers were told that overt criticism of the system damages the competition itself in meetings leading up to the new season.

That comes as a six-point plan is implemented to improve VAR, after meetings following Wolves’ proposal to scrap it at the end of last season.

That will primarily involve a new “referee’s call”, influenced by other sports, where the threshold for VAR to intervene will be significantly raised. Officials will meanwhile be encouraged to come to act decisively if they do resort to the screen, and to not keep looking at the same camera angles.

The handball laws have also been evolved by IFAB, and will be more down to “subjective judgement”, where “not every touch is an offence” and hand and arm position will be more judged “in relation to body movement”. A key idea is that players will not be expected to move with their arms by their side or behind their back.

That could well see the “referee’s call” tested more than any other, but the motivation there is that the on-pitch decision will stand unless there is readily available evidence that demonstrates a clear mistake. The Premier League are keen to move away from the current situation that sees decisions given when neither players nor spectators see anything wrong, or when even VAR requires forensic scrutiny.

The six-point plan otherwise aims to:

• Improve the clarity of threshold for VAR intervention.
• Reduce delays to the game, which includes the introduction of the semi-automated offside.
• Improve the fan experience so they are more aware of why a decision is being taken, right up to referee announcements.
• Improve VAR training and consistency.
• Improve transparency.
• Superior education and communications plan, which has involved key messaging across clubs and the media.

It was the last point that was stressed in meetings with Premier League clubs and managers before the new season, amid a feeling that it was too easy to resort to criticisms of the system. For the clubs’ part, some pointed out they felt media interviews too readily went in this direction.

Premier League voting makes clear that the clubs want to keep VAR, albeit with considerable improvements, although the Football Supporters Association did criticise a survey released that shows 77% of Premier League followers and attendees wanted to stick with the system.

The fans’ group said “all of our work on VAR since its introduction into English football has shown it is deeply, deeply unpopular with match-going fans”, while stating that such polls “make the Premier League appear to be in denial”. Over 1,300 people were surveyed for the competition’s own results. The FSA’s poll showed 63.3% of fans against VAR.

Masters pointed to how referee chief Howard Webb has been proactive in trying to improve VAR after the June vote.

“Of course we had a long debate about VAR at our summer meeting,” Masters said. “And I think the result of the vote on that, the clubs decided to keep VAR but to improve it.

“So as far as clubs are concerned, and with fans the same thing, we ask for their patience in getting it right. It’s five years old, it does take time. Football’s relatively new to technology. Sports like cricket and rugby I think have over a longer period of time done a great job of integrating it in different environments because cricket and rugby have lots of intermissions to using technology in a different way. And obviously we are working within IFAB protocols at the moment. We have to, we’ll always do that. We’d like to expand it a bit more and I think it’ll take a bit more time before technology truly works within football. So we just need everyone’s patience to get it right.”