VAR was supposed to come in and remove human error from referring decisions, making things fairer than ever before. Unfortunately, though, the divisive technology has brought about more controversy, and it has famously messed up many key moments in high stakes matches over the last few years.
Luckily, there’s talk of a new technology on the horizon, set to replace VAR. This could represent a major leap forward in levelling the playing field in footballing decisions.
Fairness is the Cornerstone of Key Online Industries
Technology has been integrated in almost all sports to make them fairer. It’s not just crucial for their integrity, but it’s also there for the spectators who don’t want to see one side being favoured over another.
This is a cornerstone in all industries online, so it should be the same in football. For instance, nobody would play online casino games if they weren’t completely fair, would they? On games like Starburst, you can see here that they follow fundamental rules that ensure the payout is fair to all players. The game has a set return to player percentage of 96.10%, and it uses an RNG (random number generator) to ensure the reels spin randomly. If it didn’t do this, it would be unlikely to attract players.
Football is at risk of losing fans if it persists in using technology that many people deem to be unfair. Although it has only been in use for a few seasons, there are already countless instances in which VAR has got things wrong. People have been demanding major changes to the system, and these could finally be on the way with a potential VAR replacement.
What is the New Technology?
According to the latest reports, FIFA is set to test a new simplified system that could potentially replace VAR in the years ahead. This will be called Football Video Support, or FVS for short. The main concern with VAR has been that it puts the decision in the hands of a group of other humans, who could still end up making mistakes. In this new scenario, it will only be the referee who makes the decisions.
The matches will play out as normal, with the on-field referee blowing for fouls and suchlike. There will still be the assistant referees as well, who raise the flag when they deem a player to have strayed offside. The difference is that many of these decisions won’t go to VAR. Instead, the opposing managers will have two chances in each match to contest a referee’s decision. In these cases, the referee will then refer to the video footage to look at an incident in more detail.
This is similar to the system used in cricket and tennis, and it works well in those sports. The only concern is that it still relies on a human to make the final decision – and we all know that people can have their own biases that affect the way they view things. The promising thing about this new FVS technology is that it shows that FIFA is trying to think of more solutions to eliminate the possibility of unfair match regulation, and it could lead to further developments in the future. This, combined with the announcement of innovative new offside technology, could mark a significant leap forward.
The greatest solution to the whole debate would be to have robots come in and start refereeing all the games. It may sound like a sci-fi dream at the moment, but that time could be coming sooner than many people expect.
