Premier League

Yes. I watch fewer games as a neutral bc I am too frustrated by VAR. I now only watch Arsenal and maybe another game that has a big affect on the top 4. I’d watch more if I wasn’t frustrated with the league so much.

I’ve never enjoyed the Prem less than I do right now and I imagine it will only get worse. Feels like it’s had the entertainment sucked out of it, with VAR being one of the main culprits. Watching lower league football is such a breath of fresh air.

You wait 23 years for your club to get promoted back to the PL only to find out it’s all a big bag of wank.

In the long term?... football is a lot less enjoyable now. Inevitable that the popularity will start to be effected.

Match fixers dream. It will be around forever.

Every top league has VAR, and the direction of travel seems to be other leagues will eventually adopt it

The referees for not accepting wrongdoing and somewhat incompetence may be the reason people turn away from the EPL.

Yes. I have stopped watching full matches. The time stopping for VAR checks is like American football game pauses. Eventually, Sky sports will be putting commercials n during they time.

That’s just the time it takes for checks. Nevermind the inconsistencies of the outcomes, which is worse than the game pausing.

Not if its done correctly, its used in other leagues just fine, its used in rugby just fine, its just refs in England, SUCK! and you are not allowed to speak ill of them else you get fined and banned by the corrupt FA.

It’s not VAR but the people running it, but in all honestly, it’s put me off. I’m much more invested in my local EFL team now. So much more exciting. Probably helps that we’re currently the most batshit team in the country to watch right now

No. Not at all.

No, of course not

It's been getting to the point of not even worth celebrating if you score until it's verified by VAR.

There should be a time limit on VAR if you can't make a decision in 2 minutes or send the ref to the screen in 2 minutes, then the on field ruling stands.

I have no idea how the VAR ref can't immediately say "Stop the match. Go look at it" in less than 60 seconds.

Ask people whose teams have gone back down to the championship.

I usually hear it’s better without VAR. There are mistakes, but you don’t need 3 minutes every call to still get mistakes.

Which are way worse because they’re supposed to be able to get a proper look and make the right call.

Which they don’t.

In the long term?... football is a lot less enjoyable now. Inevitable that the popularity will start to be effected.

I stopped watching when they didn’t enforce the first round of FFP penalties to City and didn’t investigate anyone else. I’d say the fact that Everton took a 10pt deduction and City and Chelsea (and likely United and others) will walk away with a “please don’t do it again but if you do your oil money donations to our executive bonus packages will be appreciated” will do far more lasting damage.

The emotional lag is going to cost the sport a lot of viewers.

No it won't. New football fans will find the muted celebrations after scoring goals, exciting. Who really liked people living and enjoying that Aguero moment without 3 mins of VAR check???

And the time they spend standing around while the VAR crew checks every available angle and still gets it wrong is must watch TV!

/s

I believe this anti-VAR narrative is coming from groups interested in a return to the days of rampant bullshit decisions, and you can all speculate as to why that would be something that anyone would be want.

The fact is that we get more decisions right because of VAR, and should be working to improve the process in order to lessen the negative impacts it is having, which are still better than the negative impacts that wrong decisions have on the sport.

I think they should scale it way back. Let the game be called as is, and give each team a “coach’s challenge” and you only get one. Keep the goal line tech on the watch for the ref, but after that, fouls in the box, offside, no offside, hand balls, etc etc.. let it all be subject to the ref and lines men and when there is a particular important moment where a manger feels they are in the wrong, let them throw a red flag and and do the VAR check. You only get one a game so it better count for your side.

No, this is a popular clueless internet fan thought. Any armchair fan willing to turn away from the game because of var is no loss to the sport anyway.

It’s not var that bothers me it’s how it only usually gets spoken about when it’s involving the bigger clubs it’s making a divide in this sport and highlighting major issues with the media that’s been the same for years

It just needs an overhaul personally. Maybe the automated offside system from the last World Cup

What kills the joy is being unfair. Clearly offside goals, penalties and send offs in important games.

No.

No lol, just get better refs.

IF ANYTHING IT BRINGS MORE PEOPLE , after seeing how var committing silly mistakes it will trigger fans who were in the wrong side of the var decision and other general crowd too will be tuning in , afterall when nothing works DRAMA WORKS

Unfortunately not because people will always tune in to watch their team play but it will likely boost the viewership of better leagues such as the Bundesliga as people do still want to watch proper, unadulterated, football.

I hate VAR, if we remove it we could sympathize with bad calls due to human error again.

Im sorry, now we have this , we can see the post game is more about lines, camera angles and the fine msrgins of the rules.

Use Var for off the ball issues and move on.

Dome fresh faces in the PGMOL would do wonders.

Why are there no female refs?

no. if anything it’s increasing viewership with how much people talk about it

I don’t think so. More controversies generate bigger following. And the football level is so high.

Stop putting the beautiful game into disrepute. /s

Toss it in the heap.

VAR is not the problem, VAR is objectively good, literally enforcing the rules of the game. The problem is it seems refs can decide on a whim whether or not to use it. It should just always be there in the background.

People need to remember what it was like without VAR. With the modern internet, the PL would look way worse. Also those goals that went over the line but weren't called

VAR is literally just a video replay of an incident from various angles, they have been around for years and available for TV viewers and is not some shiny new tech that has been rolled out and causing issues.

Officials are looking at these replays of an incident to determine the right call as part of the process, and these incompetent and sometimes seemingly corruption officials can't seem to get this right consistently yet.

The real problem is the ref

Less than allowing City and Chelsea to continue.

No

It should , because it’s terrible

I think the concept of VAR actually never has been the real issue, the three issues are the officiating, the rules being so open to interpretation, and the players or teams constantly looking for fouls or begging for everything to get checked.

It just leads to everything getting stopped and delayed for the smallest matters even though it was entirely meant to only iron out major issues. The officiating not getting the major issues correct then belatedly apologising isn't a fault of the system and never has been. The system for the most part captures exactly what it is meant to, every mistake is some numpty doing their job wrong.

Yes.

Even if it's only 50 Wolves fans that are giving it up now, it's still affecting people.

Unfortunately if people in charge don't want something but know they are going to be outvoted, they often still have enough authority to sabotage the thing they don't want. Think giant cookie banners on websites rather than small ones, red margarine in America rather than creamy coloured and var being needlessly shit in the UK rather than being used to improve decision making with minimal interference.