Premier League 2023-24

[jwg663]

I’m pretty sure that the originally stated purpose of VAR was to ADVISE. Decision making power would therefore always have been vested in the referee, not that you’d know it!

It was slightly more complicated than that.

Orginally, there were decisions that the VAR could examine objectively (for example, offside) & tell the on-field referee that the player was off or on. Then there were subjective decisions - red cards, penalties etc.. Hence, pitchside monitors for the on-field referee to look & decide what had occurred.

Initially, PGMOL officials didn't use the pitchside monitors, trusting in the VAR officials to decide for them. That was against the principle of VAR & the managers/supervisors at PGMOL were very slow to ensure that onfield referees actually carried out their duties as directed. I suspect that PGMOL wrongly approached this in a 'softly-softly' manner to avoid discontent amongst the referees & has led us, in part, to where we are.