VAR: A System Problem?

VAR, or Video Assistant Referee, was introduced to help match officials identify and correct significant errors during a game.  The intention was simple enough: use technology as a barrier against decisions that were missed or clearly incorrect.  A fair aspiration.  Yet, several years after its introduction, controversy appears to be just as common as ever.  Every disputed penalty, offside or red card quickly becomes a debate about whether specific referees have performed adequately.  Every supporter from every team will be able to point at decisions they feel were unjust.  Before, perhaps, some had sympathy for referees operating within a fast paced environment; naturally some decisions would be incorrect.  Now, with the tools available – people have less sympathy.  A tool that was designed to improve consistency and fairness, is often perceived as something that delivers the exact opposite.  Work as done v work as imagined.

From a Human Factors perspective, though, the more interesting question may not be whether individuals are making mistakes under pressure, but whether the system itself is creating conditions for inconsistency.  When trained professionals repeatedly struggle to achieve consistent outcomes, it is key to reduce the focus on individual performance and examine the system around them.

1. "Clear and Obvious" Is Not Actually Clear or Obvious

At the heart of VAR sits a principle that intervention should occur only when there has been a "clear and obvious error".

The challenge is that neither "clear" nor "obvious" are particularly well-defined terms.

What appears obvious to one official may appear marginal to another, and often a football supporter or pundit!  What one observer considers a straightforward error may require several replays and a lengthy discussion before another reaches the same conclusion.

Ambiguity in decision criteria can create variability in outcomes – this isn’t always a bad thing in some settings.  However, if a decision threshold relies on subjective interpretation, variation should not come as a surprise. In fact, it should be expected – this is likely not the intent here.

The purpose of VAR is to provide a barrier capable of trapping errors that were missed or decisions that were incorrect. If that is the objective, then it is reasonable to ask whether the trigger for intervention is defined clearly enough to support consistent decision making.

2. Technology Has Become More Precise Than the Rule

One of the unintended consequences of VAR is that football can now measure things with a level of precision that simply wasn't possible when many rules were created.  The Offside rule is perhaps the clearest example.

The intent of this rule was presumably to prevent attackers gaining a meaningful advantage through their position.  However, modern technology can now identify separations measured to a degree of accuracy that goes beyond the intent of the rule.  Decisions are often technically correct, yet still leave players, managers and supporters wondering whether the outcome reflects the original intent – does your finger being offside, simply because of your running stride generate a meaningful advantage to chalk off?

However, the technology in this case is doing exactly what it was designed to do – just not what many supporters would want it to do. 

The more interesting question is whether the rule should evolve to keep pace with the technology or whether the technology should measure something else?

Human Factors encounters similar challenges in many industries.  Organisations often become capable of measuring performance, compliance or deviation to levels of precision that were never anticipated when the underlying process was designed.  When this happens, the system can begin producing outcomes that are accurate but no longer feel aligned with the original purpose.

3. How Does VAR Actually Operate?

Much of the public discussion focuses on outcomes rather than processes – fair enough, a supporter is only interested in the game and the result!

Yet in most high reliability industries, good processes can help drive consistency.

Questions I would pose to the VAR team:

• Are there any formal checklists or defined processes used during reviews?

• What evidence thresholds must be met before intervention occurs?

• What standard operating procedures guide the review process?

• How are disagreements resolved?

• What protocols exist for escalating uncertainty?

• How are officials standardised to ensure consistency between different matches and teams?

Experts are experts because of their knowledge and experience.  However, experts are still human.  Procedures, protocols and decision support tools exist because even highly experienced people are vulnerable to workload, fatigue, attentional limitations and cognitive bias.  Without understanding the operating model, it is difficult to determine whether a controversial outcome is the result of individual performance or a symptom of wider system issues.

4. What Counts as a Decision?

This is perhaps one of the most interesting Human Factors questions.  VAR is often described as reviewing decisions made on the field.  But what if no decision was actually made?  Consider two different scenarios.

In the first, a referee sees a challenge, assesses it and decides no foul has occurred.

In the second, the referee never sees the challenge at all.

Both situations may ultimately result in play continuing, but they involve very different cognitive processes. One is a judgement issue.  The other is a detection or attention issue.

Human Factors may often distinguish between mistakes, slips, lapses and omissions because the underlying causes are different.  Yet football discussions often categorise everything as a "bad on field decision".  If an incident was never observed, then the challenge for the system is not necessarily decision quality but information acquisition.  Understanding the difference matters because different problems require different solutions, and systemic consideration.

5. How Are Mental Models Shared Under Pressure?

Making a decision is only part of the issue here.  Communication may be equally relevant (and important).  The referee team is effectively trying to build a shared mental model of a dynamic event while operating under extreme time pressure, intense scrutiny and significant consequences – all under the watchful eye of millions!

The quality of that shared understanding is heavily influenced by the questions being asked.

For example:

• "What are we seeing?"

• "Talk me through the sequence."

• "What evidence supports that interpretation?"

These are open questions. They encourage information gathering and allow alternative viewpoints to emerge.

Compare those with:

• "Is he/she interfering with play?"

• "Is there enough contact for a penalty?"

• "That's a foul, isn't it?"

These questions are more leading and closed in nature and may unintentionally steer a decision towards a particular conclusion before all available evidence has been explored.

Under pressure, communication becomes even more important because people naturally seek cognitive shortcuts.  Experts frequently rely on recognition-based decision making, rapidly matching situations to previous experiences. Most of the time this works effectively. However, ambiguity increases the likelihood that different people will construct different interpretations from the same information – the communication language therefore plays a significant role in the outcome.

6. Penalties And Expert Judgement

Few decisions generate more controversy than penalties!  Officials are expected to assess intent, contact, consequences and context within seconds, often from imperfect viewing angles and in highly congested situations.  The outcome can change a game and have significant consequences from both a sporting and business perspective.

Are referees being given sufficient support for the complexity of the task?  The discussion often focuses on whether the referee got the decision right or wrong, but could additional expertise, from a different perspective, improve consistency?  Unlike an offside decision, many penalty decisions are not simply about identifying whether something happened. They require officials to interpret intent, assess the significance of potential contact, determine whether an action influenced an outcome and make a judgement about fairness. These are complex cognitive tasks involving uncertainty rather than straightforward observations of fact.  In Human Factors terms, these are often judgement-based decisions rather than rule-based decisions. The challenge is not necessarily seeing the event but interpreting its meaning consistently under pressure.

Are referees given sufficient support to bridge this gap?  Could former players provide insight into actions that influence behaviour?  Would the incorporation of a different perspective – perhaps a former player – offer support, or would this add an additional layer of complexity?  The important point to consider is that these are system design questions rather than individual performance questions.

Lastly, how much consistency should we realistically expect when highly experienced people are required to exercise judgement rather than simply apply a rule?

7. How Is Reliability & Consistency Maintained?

A consistent challenge across multiple domains involves presenting different people with the same information and desiring the same conclusion or output.   Reliability is rarely achieved by simply employing talented people and hoping for consistency.  Sometimes, decision making variability is welcomed – sometimes, it is not. However, it will exist!

However, organisations typically attempt to manage this issue with:

• Clear definitions

• Standardised processes

• Training and rater reliability or concordance

• Effective communication

• Performance monitoring

• Continuous learning – what went well (repeat it) what went less well (learn from it)

• Regular review and reflection

If similar controversies continue to emerge across multiple seasons, involving different referees, different VAR teams and different matches, then there will be value in looking beyond the individuals and considering the system influence.

A Human Factors Perspective

The easiest response to any controversial decision is to identify someone who appears responsible and remove them from the next game.  This approach rarely solves systemic problems – as the structure and causal influences remain for the next person.

Considering Just Culture, and taking a systems approach may encourage us to move beyond "Who got it wrong?" and focus on "How the system shapes performance?"

That shift in thinking has progressed safety in many other industries – is it time for it to have an influence with VAR?