Love it or hate it? Football fans across the UAE weigh in on the VAR debate

Gulf News

Football is being overshadowed by VAR controversies day in and day out. While footballers and managers claim it is killing the game they love, fans are left frustrated by inconsistencies, and referees are bearing the brunt of the anger. We ask football fans across the UAE what they think of the controversial technology.  Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/3qvsxOW   Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #VAR #Sports #Football

Transcript

00:00VAR is not real like I

00:03Know we're gonna have different opinions and that's okay

00:06I guess there's something weird about like fans holding off to celebrate a goal and

00:13It's not a goal and at the same time I get it. What if it's not an actual goal?

00:18Just try not to be too philosophical. Okay, I think this is part of the game

00:23Like that's part of the whole football game the excitement the intensity of the passion

00:28You know everything that goes on with the game of football

00:31I'm not really a big fan of that, but I could understand why it's happening

00:35But yeah, I wish we don't have VAR as a football fan myself. I have always been a little skeptical when it comes to

00:43introducing certain types of technology onto the world's greatest game that dates back to

00:492013 when goal line technology was introduced and

00:53Obviously the next couple of years with the announcement of VAR as countries slowly began

01:00Implementing and introducing VAR onto their leagues

01:03It has only proved time and time and again that this is a system a type of technology

01:09That does not work in favor of the game. And if anything it causes

01:14Controversy it sparks debate. There is a lack of stability lack of proper monitoring which does not do the game any favors and

01:23I personally feel that there are other sports such as cricket

01:28Tennis or even American football that had certain reliance on the video like technology which worked in

01:36their favor

01:37but when it comes to football

01:39I would rather live with the human error of the referee as opposed to the VAR system. What a joke, honestly

01:48speaking from the Arsenal perspective

01:50You know this just two games ago

01:53David Lewis got sent off the pitch for

01:56Minimal contact on on the attacker and the exact same thing happens to us this week. And you know what? It's not a penalty

02:03What's the point of having VAR? Honestly, it's just that for VAR

02:08The whole system is just it's all about humans, right?

02:11The whole point of VAR the concept phase is that hey, we have a machine in you we can review the video

02:18We can see what's actually a foul what's actually not a foul and that will reduce errors make the game more fair

02:23But that's not actually happening. In fact, the VAR becomes a star every other week

02:27I think there needs to be a way to figure out how to take the human side of it out of VAR

02:31so VAR was introduced to sort of

02:35take care of clear-cut mistakes, right and sort of get rid of those anomalies or

02:42Mistakes that obviously human referees could end up making but I don't know the introduction of VAR

02:48hasn't really fixed that problem and it's only created more issues and

02:52Given a choice. I'd prefer human inconsistencies or

02:57technology

02:58Making the same mistakes, right? It's it doesn't make any sense. Plus we are

03:05definitely has

03:07sort of

03:08Sucked out all the joy from football. I mean now even when your team scores a goal

03:14you hesitate from

03:17Celebrating because you have one eye on the referee or on the screen because you want to see if that goal is going to be

03:23Repealed and that's not fun. Right as a big fan of technology and

03:27means of ensuring fairness in games

03:29I welcomed VAR into football

03:32My initial gut feeling is that it would be good for the game and I still continue to believe so

03:38But taking a quick look at the audience polls and a sly glance at Twitter

03:44It's clear to see that it's not a crowd favorite as

03:48A viewer it doesn't bother me that it takes away

03:52minutes from the game or

03:54It ruins the experience as some football purists might say

03:59pundits and players have had their opinion about VAR

04:03but at the end of the day, it is a tool for the referees and

04:07They must decide how best to use it just like any other tool. It can be misused

04:14But overall I feel it's the situations in football that cause controversies and not VAR

04:20VAR just happens to be the tool used in these controversial situations

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