Chelsea fans may have buyers’ remorse when VAR enters Premier League

The Women’s World Cup is not creating much optimism about VAR’s arrival in the Premier League. Chelsea fans should think about the trade-offs it would have forced on some club legends before embracing its introduction.

Many Chelsea fans would offer a one-word argument in favour of video assistant referee: Ovrebo. Tom Ovrebo’s repeated, egregious errors – clear and convincing, to use VAR parlance – cost Chelsea a place in the 2009 Champions League final, and comprise Exhibit A for having a few extra sets of eyes with multiple angles, slow-motion cameras and as many viewings as possible feeding into a conversation about certain events on the pitch.

VAR’s implementation at the Women’s World Cup has Premier League fans concerned about the incessant delays (1-2 minutes to decide whether to go look, 1-2 minutes at the screen, another minute setting or resetting play) and the fact that the same imperfect human beings who flub calls in real time remain imperfect after heavy deliberation.

These, though, are fixable concerns. They can be smoothed out through procedure and training.

Where football fans – Premier League fans in particular, Chelsea fans even more so – should worry is the almost gleeful celebration by some fans and commentators of the objective rigidity VAR provides. A shoulder off-side, a toe on the goal line… applauding the interjection of these trivialities into the game, independent of the five minutes necessary to spot and enforce them, is elevating pedantry over football.

Chelsea fans love a good bastard. John Terry and Diego Costa are celebrated for their dark arts as much as their tackles, clearances and goals. Other teams have their hacks and heels, but the Blues were blessed with two excellent footballers who earned their wages in the limelight but earned affection in the penumbras of the Laws of the Game and the blind spot of all four officials.

VAR overwrites the spirit of the Laws of the Game – and of the profession of officiating – even as it makes those laws more objectively enforceable. The Laws of the Game – like any other law, rule or standard – are there to ensure a smooth flow of activity as much as a fair balance of competition. The Laws have taken shape over time to ensure the proper conduct of football and the proper conduct of a football game. They are not there for their own sake.

The Laws explicitly acknowledge this through a Law: the advantage.

Many sports have their version of playing the advantage. This allows the official to exercise his judgment and say, yes, something happened, but, whatever impact it had on the affected team, my interference at this point would have a greater negative effect. Playing the advantage acknowledges that not enforcing a Law of the Game could be the best thing for that particular game, because there is a higher value – the run of play – than the enforcement of the law. If the infraction was serious enough the referee can issue a card at the next stoppage in play, but more often the infraction is washed away by 5-10 seconds of footballing.

The importance of playing the advantage is further affirmed by the role it plays in assessing a referee’s performance. It enters the referees’ training courses in the intermediate levels, and, even in top-tier football, is widely recognized as a differentiator between good and great referees. Referees take pride when they play the advantage and the team goes on to score a goal: it shows their understanding of the run of play and confirms their decision that calling the foul was not the greater good.

Chelsea fans should appreciate this Law of the Game and the ability of referees to recognize and play the advantage. Eden Hazard was (I nearly wrote “is” – still not used to it) one of the most-fouled players in the Premier League every year. Those stats don’t count the number of times a referee played the advantage. Chelsea were a frequent beneficiary of that discretion because Hazard did not go to ground easily. He could fight off a number of kicks and pushes, keep the play alive and often rewarded himself and the referee with a goal.

Chelsea fans, verily, do not want every foul called every time with mechanistic rigor. Not the fouls for, and not the fouls against. Fans want the full range moments when the play is stopped, moments when play is allowed to continue on the advantage and moments when the referee just chooses to keep his whistle away from his lips. They want the freedom for Eden Hazard and John Terry in equal parts.

VAR will not affect referees’ ability to play the advantage, but fans should not celebrate the end of their implicit discretion across the game. VAR eliminates their ability to exercise professional judgment, and it binds referees to make pivotal judgments over trivialities: the aforementioned offsides shoulder, the trailing foot of a retreating player being offsides, the goalkeeper’s toe on a penalty kick. With VAR, the referee has to make those calls. Without it, even if he saw it, he could use his brain and execute his plan for the game, just like the other two teams on the pitch, in Mark Clattenburg’s impeccable formulation.

As technology and – more importantly – the culture around the game changes, VAR will encircle more of the game: the various elbows from John Terry, the antagonisms of Diego Costa. Feel free to get as technologically dystopian as you’d like: “Alexa, play the advantage.”

Scoff if you choose, but we yer da’s and dinosaurs will only hold the line for so long.

Football fans should be wary not only about the practical implementation of VAR but the drift in the relationship between the Laws of the Game and the game itself. The Laws serve the game, and everyone in the game wins from the Laws being subordinate.

In football as in life, fear the martinets and pedants who celebrate the reversal.