The introduction of VAR in the Premiership has been a hot topic of discussion in Scottish football circles recently. And it has only intensified over the past month with the Rangers fans claiming that they have been done dirty by the referees.
Christopher Jullien looked marginally offside when he scored the winner at Hampden Park earlier this month to win Celtic the Scottish League Cup. Edouard’s goal in the Glasgow Derby last Sunday also seemed to deflect off his hand. And the Rangers fans have called for the immediate introduction of VAR in Scottish football following these incidents.
But Kenny Dalglish believes that the SFA should not rush into any decision as the current system has a lot of issues that need to be fixed. In the 05/01 print edition of The Sunday Post, Dalglish wrote:
“It is helpful, for sure, but it is far from perfect. Therefore, with a lot of work still to be done on it, I don’t think introducing it to Scottish football in the middle of this campaign is the answer. It might do more harm than good.
“For a start, you would need to train up the referees and other officials on the workings of it. You can’t just throw in VAR after the winter break and tell them all to get on with it.
“There is also the affordability aspect. Is it the best way for Scotland’s football hierarchy to be spending the game’s money?”
One only needs to look at the Premier League to see how VAR can ruin the fun of a football game. The decisions made by VAR have been continuously debated by the pundits down South and there are even calls for it to be abolished next season after what has clearly been a failed experiment. Thus, the SFA should wait until the problems with the system are ironed out before they adopt it.
