Proposal: Put Phil Hay in charge of VAR

Last week I got an email asking for a quick one-line contribution to issue two of The Square Ball on the subject of how to fix VAR. I haven’t had the opportunity to read the thoughts of my fellow contributors, but I’m sure their suggestions were well-reasoned and erudite. Mine wasn’t, partly because I’m an idiot whose reflex is always to deflect serious questions with humour, but also because I couldn’t condense my pitch-dark loathing of VAR into a single sentence. What I really wanted to say is that VAR can fuck off. It can keep fucking off, too, all the way over the horizon until it’s gone so far that it meets itself coming back, at which point it can skip merrily into the sunset and never darken our lives again.

VAR reminds me of the famous ‘New Coke’ debacle of 1985, when Coca-Cola, concerned by its diminishing market share, decided to mess with its formula. After positive results from the initial taste tests, they withdrew their original product and launched New Coke amid plenty of fanfare, confident it would revitalise their sales figures. It did, but not in the expected manner.

New Coke lasted 79 days, roughly as long as Dave Hockaday managed Leeds United, with similar results. Reaction ranged from disappointment to outright fury, with phrases like ‘an intrusion on tradition’ being used. The company hotline was swamped, and a psychiatrist hired by Coke to listen to the complaints stated that some customers sounded as though they were discussing a bereavement. The company president later admitted they had underestimated the “deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people.”

This is where the analogy between VAR and New Coke begins to diverge. Coca-Cola buckled under the backlash and brought back the original drink. Sales rebounded and made the company stronger than ever. Customers gained new-found appreciation of something they had believed was lost forever, and everyone lived happily ever after, more or less. The mistake was acknowledged and lessons were learned.

Football doesn’t have to worry about losing its market share. As proved by the recent passing of the Queen and the postponements that ensued, Saturday afternoons are boring as hell without football. Coke drinkers who didn’t like the new product had the option of switching to Pepsi, and did. We’ve been forced to swallow the inferior product that VAR has given us because there isn’t a credible alternative. Mowing the lawn or alphabetising the bookcase doesn’t exactly give me the heady rush of emotions that Leeds United put me through every weekend. We’re stuck with this New Football, with its interminable delays and lack of refereeing accountability, and it’s starting to feel like the original formula may already be lost.

Consequently, we’re ploughing ahead with the despised VAR system, which is showing few signs of improving and is particularly painful for matchgoing fans who now have to spend a not inconsiderable chunk of their Saturday watching an official peering at a little screen before deciding whether or not to wreck their weekend. We’re powerless to change it, which only intensifies the fury. Football is supposed to be our game, and it’s being taken from us little by little, transforming into something loathsome. So we vent our feelings online, in the vain hope that someone, somewhere will change it.

VAR’s advocates will tell you the delays are a price worth paying for correct refereeing decisions. In fairness, it’s useful for the objective stuff, like determining whether a foul took place inside or outside the box, but falls down when it comes to judging intent. If Diego Llorente handles the ball, is it a reflex, or clumsiness, or a deliberate attempt to cheat? I wouldn’t trust Mike Dean to know the answer because, to be frank, I’m not sure even Llorente knows — stuff often happens in the heat of battle that defies explanation, and not just where Llorente’s concerned. This utopian vision in which every football fan has complete confidence in the officials’ decisions appears as far away as ever. So why are we bothering?

Injustice is part of football, because referees are fallible, and occasionally bent. As Leeds fans, we know this better than most, having lost two European finals in less than transparent circumstances. It won’t ever be eradicated from the game, no matter how many times you stop play to deliberate over a monitor. Sometimes we just don’t get what we deserve, and how we process that is up to us.

Injustice is woven into the history and identity of Leeds United. It’s why we chant WACCOE in acknowledgement of the European Cup that was taken from us, and which we never got the chance to defend. Injustice has made us more fervent, more passionate, more determined to turn the natural order on its head. Shared injustice builds camaraderie and brings us together. It’s Leeds against the world, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The world’s unfair, and very occasionally it’s unfair in our favour. It could be that next week (or month, or whenever the powers that be finally decide to let us play football again) VAR comes down on our side, and leaves us feeling slightly mellower towards it. I don’t care — it’s not worth it. It’s already set an unrealistic expectation of fairness that it can’t possibly deliver, and raised the temperature of refereeing debates across the country. We expect it to be perfect, and it can’t be, ever. It needs to go.

Failing that, how can we fix it? For me, the only sensible thing to do is to give all the power to one trustworthy individual: Phil Hay. Once his ‘GOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLL’ tweet has been published to the internet, the goal stands, no matter what. Doesn’t matter if five attackers are standing offside and someone’s pulled the goalie’s shorts down — it’s set in stone. Complications might arise if he starts abusing his power and ends up gifting Hearts six successive Champions Leagues, but that’s for someone else to worry about.

Hey, I’m just a fan at the end of the day. Don’t come to me for serious answers. And, as should be obvious by now, no-one’s listening anyway. ⬢