Premier League clubs to have an emergency meeting for VAR debate

Video Assistant Referee (VAR) has had a far from a smooth debut in the Premier League. It has been a hot topic for discussions among the clubs and players alike all season long. There have been quite a few instances where VAR has received a lot of criticism from fans for doing more harm to the game than good. According to British media reports, Premier League clubs will have an emergency meeting to discuss the problems surrounding VAR. Much of the discussion will be centred around whether managers should be allowed to appeal a refereeing decision during the game.

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Premier League has issues with VAR

On October 27, Manchester United were awarded a penalty vs Norwich City following a lengthy VAR review when Ben Godfrey was deemed to have brought down Daniel James in the box but United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer himself believed his side were incorrectly awarded a penalty by VAR.

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Another recent example of it is when Liverpool forward Roberto Firmino was given offside by the VAR, even though the replay appeared to show the opposite. The Premier League defended it by claiming that Firmino’s armpit was offside, which was later slammed by Jurgen Klopp. 

This problem is not limited to Liverpool only but is spread across every Premier League club, hence it has reached to an extent that top-flight clubs in England are calling out an emergency meeting to end the issue. 

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Premier League: Emergency meetings

The idea is to give managers a set number of appeals per match to appeal decisions made by VAR, a similar appeal system is used in many other sports, including tennis and cricket. However, it’s believed that the Premier League will be against that idea over fears that it will lead to time-wasting and tactical appeals by managers to break up play and run down the clock.

Discussions around introducing the appeal will not be the only topic that is on the agenda of the meeting. As per reports, certain club representatives will be putting forth the idea of revoking VAR as it is deemed that VAR has failed to accomplish its objectives. 

Even if the Premier League were open to the idea of VAR appeals, they would require the IFAB to change the laws of the game before it could be introduced.

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