English VAR Emergency

VAR is usually quite polarizing and taking the weekend debacle into context, all eyes will be fully focused on the referees during and after an immense title showdown at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday.

After multiple seemingly obvious decisions were wrongly taken this past weekend, in more than a few games as well, there was an emergency meeting held by head of referees, Howard Webb. Prior to the meeting, there was a statement released by Mr Webb, acknowledging the error that led to Ivan Toney’s goal at Arsenal on Saturday that was wrongly allowed.

Now the question on everyone’s lips is; why are English referees consistently inconsistent and what needs to be done about it?
Simply put, it’s not going to be an overnight fix but, improvements have to be visible sooner rather than later if the integrity of the English Premier League is to be maintained. An option to be considered to tackle the questions above is, one: referees should be suspended for wrong implementation of objective decisions ie offside. This includes the VAR on duty as well as the on pitch referee. Admittedly, this may seem quite harsh on the surface. However, taking into consideration how much teams have lost and stand to lose, referees also have to face the music and most Arsenal fans would tend to agree including head coach, Mikel Arteta.

The second option, which involves the accomodation of former football players into the referee’s association, will aid the the accuracy of implementation of subjective decisions ie, fouls and handball decisions. This is an option that seems a no brainer since majority of the current referees, didn’t play professionally hence, their interpretation of the rule book will be “mechanic” and not “natural”.

Regardless of the route to improving the decision making in the EPL, what remains to be seen is how much of an influence the referee for the game between Arsenal and Manchester City will have on the eventual champions of the current season. One thing is for certain, the Premier League and it’s referees need to do better.