VAR : A Manchester City Fan Perspective

Manchester City have been on the wrong end of decisions in big games. But how are the fans feeling about these wrong decisions? What role does VAR play?

The thing is Manchester City fans are feeling a little paranoid anyway. That is just a general disposition built on a number of years being shafted by the authorities. In fact it reached the point where it did not matter which authority it was – FIFA, UEFA, The FA, The Premier League – we have been on the wrong end of all of them.

This season did not start well for Manchester City in one regard when outgoing Premier League Chairman Richard Scudamore stated it would be better for the League if City did not run away with the title again. It did not take the even the most ardent of City fans to realise this was setting the scene for a year when we get fouled all over the pitch without so much as a free kick given but so much as a light breeze passes within 50 feet of Mo Salah and he is writhing in agony and given a penalty!

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Watching all of this transpire over the last couple of years has driven City fans to making tin foil hats and many have even started seeing conspiracy theories where there are none. Or may not be any.

It has not helped that the Liverpool FC Public Relations machine has been in full swing. The Reds have become media darlings and their fans are pandered to by a fawning bunch of fan boy journalists. It has reached the point where all sorts of fan writing has started masquerading as sports journalism.

Indeed it has reached the very point where Independent columnist Miguel Delaney can even claim with a straight face:

0 points dropped in the title race in almost two months. Unprecedented. You’d prob expect it of City, since it’s the inevitable consequence the most lavish project in football - but Liverpool to be matching that pace is a genuinely supreme feat.
— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) April 21, 2019

Which seems to mean even if Liverpool finish second then they are better.

Last year we suffered the ignominy of going out to Liverpool in the Champions League Quarters as a result of onside goals being incorrectly flagged and offside goals being incorrectly flagged. City fans made sense of it as if it was some kind of bizarre Spanish plot to punish our Catalan leader, Pep Guardiola.

This year in the Champions League we had VAR in place which supposedly is all about getting decisions right. This year we were knocked out of the Champions League Quarter Finals by Tottenham largely by mistakes in VAR. There is no point having a replay if the correct angle is not viewed is there? Instead we were punished for the most miniscule of off sides ever seen to rob us of the winning goal.

So even with VAR – the very tool supposed to save us from poor refereeing – we have been victims of an injustice.

My real bug bear though is not that VAR gets decisions wrong. I can live with human error. My main issue is that as a match going fan it absolutely ruins the moment for us in the stadium. We sit there not trusted with the real time replays, oblivious to the reason for the lengthy delay. We have to learn to mute our celebrations because what is the point of celebrating when we have to wait for confirmation?

So inside the stadium VAR kills any atmosphere present. It is a product for the TV audience because in the TV studio the gaps in play are exploited by endless re runs of the incident and poured over by pundits. Therefore it places the match going fan in subservience fully to the TV audience – because all of a sudden this is clearly who the game is marketed at. Fans in the stadium are left devalued.

My over riding thought after the Champions League Quarter Final was to not bother renewing My Champions League tickets for next season. With VAR no one wants us there.

Right now fans of other clubs will point to this as sour grapes – but time will tell. Once they have experienced the awkward silences and interruptions to the game, the confusion in the stadium, the delayed announcements and the heartbreak of its staggering inept intervention then those other fans will change their minds too.

The real problem is that VAR is being introduced into the Premier League as well from next season. So whilst it may rule out 14 offside Liverpool goals a season, it will also destroy any atmosphere in those games too.

For VAR to work for fans in the stadium the action has to be replayed on the screens. That way the fans can stay involved. But even then it continues to risk the passion of our beautiful game. When I think of the greatest moment in football I have ever had the pleasure of watching – the Aguero goal which won the Premier League Title in the last second of the last game of the season in 2012 – I recall the unbridled passion and outpouring of emotion which greeted it. However that very moment if it happened next year would be ruined by VAR. As delays on the viewing for the referee would just ruin the moment.

Next. Man City 1 Spurs 0 May be My Favourite Game of the Season. dark

The human refereeing error has been a central part of our game for 150 years and is an important part of the fabric. In a search for drama for the TV viewer the powers that be are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and sanitising our game beyond recognition. This will weaken the broadcast market as the passionate match going supporter is simply rendered obsolete.

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