VAR In The Premier League

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VAR In the Premier League (England)

The Premier League (Formerly The Barclays League) is the top flight English competition, allowing teams from anywhere in England to compete at the highest level. Many consider this to be the most competitive top flight league in the world, this is because of the volatility of the league, it feels as though its rarely a one horse race at the start of a season. The EPL (English Premier League) has hosted some of the greatest talents and teams in the world.

VAR in the EPL is one of the most consistently controversial forms of the technology.

VAR is limited to 4 categories for the EPL, these are: Possible Red Card, Possible Penalties, Goal Decisions and Mistaken Identity.

Possible Red Card

A PRC decision (Possible Red Card) is a potential offence which is worthy of a "sending off", when a player receives a red card they are ejected from the match and will serve a ban usually of 1 match. further disciplinary action may be taken depending on the severity of the decision. For Example: Eric Cantona is one of the greatest attackers of our generation, his most notable stint being with Manchester United between 1992 - 1997. Cantona was a hot headed attacker, losing his temper very easily. This culminated in an incident in which Cantona kicked an audience member at a match.

^Image From Action Images.

Cantona was sent off and served a rather severe 9 Month ban for his actions. this was before the time of VAR and many believe that if we had the technology in place today this incident would have been prevented, as this incident was caused by a penalty being disallowed despite a very blatant foul. Cantona was the target of the foul and when an audience member critiqued him for "diving" he let it out on him. The on field decision was a red card, which was later upgraded to assault in a court of law. this is one of the highest profile cases of why VAR is necessary as this situation would've been diffused.

Possible Penalties

Possible Penalties are one of the most common usages for VAR. This is also a very controversial aspect of VAR as decisions obviously have to favor one team. For example, Liverpool FC faced off against Chelsea FC on Saturday October 4th. This was a very important match for both teams with Liverpool leading the table going into the game and Chelsea being on amazing form, it was set to be a nail bitter. After an absolutely thunderous strike from Moises Caicedo put the blues ahead, Liverpool equalize after some finesse from Cody Matheus Gakpo. tensions were extremely high as neither team was willing to settle for a draw. New transfer Alejandro Garnacho was making a charge down the wing when inverted fullback Dominik Szoboslai put in a rather physical challenge, it wasn't clear whether he pushed Garnacho or Garnacho had fallen after losing balance due to the additional pressure being applied by Szoboslai. The on-field decision was No Penalty, which was later reinforced by VAR after the fact in a post-decision analysis. Despite both VAR and the on field referee agreeing, the fans were still completely set on the fact it was a penalty.

^Image from Just Arsenal News

Goal Decision

Goal Line Technology or GDS is another form of VAR. Many people don't associate them with each other due to the fact that GDS was implemented before the wider scope of VAR. GDS was implemented to the premier league in 2013 while var was introduced in 2019. 

Goal Decisions are implemented when it isn't clear whether or not the ball passed the threshold of the goal. Often seen during "bar down" shots.

An incident in England came in a Premier League game between Bolton Wanderers and Queens Park Rangers on 10 March 2012, when QPR's Clint Hill headed the ball in from close range. The ball crossed the line by a couple of feet before goalkeeper Ádám Bogdán was able to palm it onto the crossbar and out. The Football Association (FA) subsequently called for goal-line technology to be implemented as soon as possible. The corner which led to the goal had in fact been wrongly awarded, and should have been a Bolton goal kick, meaning two bad decisions "evened themselves out".

^Image from Michael Steele 

Mistaken Identity

In the event that the referee awards a yellow or red card to the wrong player, the VAR will advise as to the correct player to be disciplined.

For Example: West Ham United v Newcastle United: West Ham's Tomas Soucek is shown a yellow for a challenge on Allan Saint-Maximin. The foul was committed by Andriy Yarmolenko so the VAR advises the referee to reassign the caution to the Ukrainian. As this is a factual decision, the RRA is not needed.  



^ Image from Premier League

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