Five reasons why Premier League should trial VAR

Except for the English top flight, all other major leagues in Europe have adopted the technology with great effect.

Video Assistant Refereeing needs no introduction, but the dire need of technology in the English top-flight is what needs to be addressed. While the clubs vetoed the use of the tech in Premier League but they reached a decision to continue the use of it in the FA Cup and the EFL Cup.

The announcement came a day after UEFA confirmed they would not be fast-tracking the system in either the Champions League or the Europa League next season but more than the European tournaments, which have five officials on the field, Premier League need it and here are the reasons why.

Successful debut at International stage

For a long time, various International sports authorities have been using technology to assist the decision making of match officials. Ball tracking system in cricket, foul replays in basketball and hawk-eye in tennis have been a few successful infusion and FIFA World Cup 2018 brought something new, the Video Assistant Referee technology and it changed the face of the game.

VAR helped match officials to produce one of the cleanest edition of this quadrennial event and keeping in view the efficiency, it is high time to use it in the Premier League.

How Decision Review System works in Cricket

Enhance decision making

The only thing which is not good enough in the Premier League are the errors in the decision making of the officials. The rivalries are legendary, the pace is rapid, the table always stays unpredictable and the fans are extraordinary. But the decision making is just below par, still better than the leagues in the rest of the World yet still not good enough for the English top-flight.

VAR can do it, it can provide the ammunition to the referees to enhance the quality of the game by better decision making. But the over-use of VAR can hinder the pace of the game, it will be sacrificed as it was evident in the FIFA World Cup a couple of months ago.

European domestic acceptance

Last season, Serie A became one of the first leagues in Europe to welcome VAR with open arms and it was a success, followed by other successful stints in Germany and USA. Roberto Rosetti, the former referee heading the experiment in Serie A, said in October last month that an average of three mistakes was being avoided every match day.

Although there could be greater transparency, on the whole, it was changing things for the better. Players knew they are being watched: The number of fouls is down from 260 to 203 in just a couple of months. Yellow and red cards had decreased and players had, for the most part, stopped protesting decisions because they know the tape never lies.

La Liga and Ligue 1, on the other hand, have started the use of VAR. It has come down to only the premier league who are still avoiding the use of VAR.

Will sideline the criticism aimed at officials

Time and again, managers have had a habit of criticising the match officials quite often. Jose Mourinho, since long, stays in the headlines for ill-mouthing the officials week-in-week-out and the job of a referee is not child's play, especially in England.

They are prone to criticism, from fans and clubs officials and the use of the technology that will enhance will protect them from this uncanny custom of blaming referees.

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Assist them in seeing blind spots

Just four match-days in this season and the refereeing is already in scrutiny. In the third game week, Manchester City were playing against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Wilfred Boly opened the scoring for the hosts.

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That goal, which reportedly robbed Manchester City off their 2 points

The controversy of the goal was that it looked that Boly had headed the goal in but in reality and on looking a bit closer on the tape, it was revealed that he actually had a handball goal. These type of incidents which are merely blind spots for three referees on the ground will decrease once they will have a fourth or fifth referee in a room with this technology for their use.