After Mane's Offside Goal - Why Isn’t VAR Being Used In The Premier League?

The question was going to come about sooner or later, and it turns out that a controversial decision in the first game week has sparked a discussion as to why VAR won’t be used in the Premier League this season. West Ham fans were horrified when Sadio Mane scored Liverpool’s third goal in the top flight opener from an offside position. Everyone watching could see that he was beyond the last man – apart from the referee’s assistant. So why isn’t VAR being used?
Football nowadays is much faster-paced than it was even ten years ago, and it is getting progressively harder for referees to spot everything that goes on in a match. There have been frequent incidents of officials making mistakes, which have caused uproar and sometimes even cost teams dearly. One of the most famous moments missed by a referee was in the quarterfinal of the 1986 World Cup, when Diego Maradona scored with a handball. Things like this led to the decision that a video assistant may be required to make matches fairer moving forward.

VAR made its first appearance on the world stage at the World Cup in Russia last summer. Initially, people’s feelings were mixed about the new technology. Many were questioning why it was being used for some things and not others, but by the end of the tournament it was winning football fans over. Referees were able to reward penalties that they may not have noticed before, and the technology was also used to spot players taking a dive. It seemed that the initial teething problems of using VAR were over, but it still hasn’t convinced the FA to use it in the Premier League.
It is often contested that refereeing decisions go in the favour of bigger clubs, at the cost of weaker teams who may be battling against relegation. In 2012, Fulham manager Martin Jol claimed that his side were denied a penalty against Manchester United at Old Trafford in a 1-0 defeat. This prompted the BBC to delve into the stats, and the news site did indeed find that the smallest club at the time Blackburn Rovers conceded the most penalties on average while Chelsea conceded the fewest. Now that the Cottagers are back in the top flight, they need fair decisions to help stave off relegation. At the time of writing, they are 2/1 in the Premier League relegation odds to drop back down at the end of the season.
With VAR already in use in other leagues across the world, it wouldn’t be surprising to see it used in the UK in the near future. One of the main issues with the technology is the fact that it hasn’t been used consistently, so this is something that needs addressing. Perhaps if football followed in the footsteps of cricket and allowed teams a certain amount of challenges per game it could work. Many would agree that for football to move into the modern age, technology should be put to good use.