Tottenham’s Son Heung-Min’s cross - with the slightest brush of a teammate’s head – swung into the goal ten minutes into a match against Fulham in September, but VAR revealed Harry Kane was offside and the goalwasdisallowed. Yet more drama unfolded in the 90th minute, when a Spurs goal was again disallowed after a VAR review.
Welcome to the wild world of video assistant referees (VAR). While those calls might have been correct, recent controversies prove that’s not always the case – but AI, 3D motion capture and virtual reality could all help.
The Premier League took its time before introducing technology to aid referees with line and goal calls, but finally introduced VAR systems in the 2019-20 season for some offsides, goals and penalties. That was welcomed by some, derided by others. Amid a series of controversial video calls that year, former footballer and broadcaster Gary Lineker VAR was “killing the game”. However, the Premier shows the number of offsides and fouls has decreased since its introduction.
