It is expected that on June 6 (UK time), Premier League clubs will be voted at the annual meeting in Harrowgate (Yorkshire area). This is a vote based on Wolves' proposal early last month on whether or not to use VAR in the Premier League from next season.
When launching this campaign, the Molineux team is quite confident in attracting more "allies". However, after a month of going, it seems that the support from the remaining 19 clubs is not as strong as Wolves thought.
The Athletic noted that there were many teams upset about VAR in the last season, but instead of eliminating it, they will discuss and discuss together to improve the way this system is operated from the 2024-2025 season. If Wolves want their goal to come true, they need support from at least 13 more clubs. At this point, that is almost impossible.
Not to mention that from next season, the Premier League will apply semi-automatic offside technology that was successfully demonstrated at the 2022 World Cup. In recent seasons, VAR in the Premier League has caused controversy mostly in situations that determine offside. With this new technology, VAR will be lighter and can focus on other situations. Therefore, it is not necessary to remove them.
Head of the Professional Games Management Board (PGMOL) - former referee Howard Webb said that in April 2024, from next season, the refereeing committee will study to come up with more scientific methods for each time referees use VAR.
The Premier League board believes that removing VAR is not the right direction from next season. The struggle to bring a technology into the tournament like VAR has taken a lot of effort, now eliminating it after only 5 years is no different from a slape for the organizers. Not to mention that if the referees return to practice simply as before and without the help of VAR, each time they make a wrong decision, the anger of the fans will increase.
Before VAR was applied, the number of correct decisions made by Premier League referees was only 82%. It has increased to 96% in the 2023-2024 season. Statistics from the Association of English Professional Football (EFL) show that the rate of correct refereeing in the Championship last season was 85%.
Despite the increase of 96%%, among the remaining 4% in the Premier League last season, it still left many very serious consequences. Liverpool fans still cannot forget the incident where Luis Diaz was denied a goal against Tottenham in the September 2023 match in London. After that, PGMOL had to apologize and considered it a serious mistake by the management team.
