I was very pleased when VAR were first introduced into the sport. What could have gone wrong- you have this panel of expert, in a room, having access to camera from all angle. More importantly, it introduces some sort of accountability to the referee. They have none to blame and nowhere to hide now that they can look at the incidence over and over again. In a nutshell, I had some hope that we will never see matches like Italy-Korea 2002, Barcelona-Chelsea 2009 again.
VAR worked so well in every other sport as well.
And initially, it worked quite well. 2018 and 2022 World Cup were both amazing. You cannot point at any match and say a team wouldnt had won had there not been for the referee. Things were less rosy in the CL and definitely the Premier League, but things never were too bad. And then this season came. It seems to me that the system just collapsed. You have matches like Liverpool-Tottenham, Arsenal-Newcastle and tonight ManU-Copenhagen, all just within a couple of weeks where decisions are so arbitrary that it seems they were made simply by the referee flipping a coin.
What do you think happened?