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I Can't Stop Thinking about Var: Forward by Jonathan Wilson
224 pages, Paperback
Published November 6, 2025
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December 10, 2025
This was easy to read considering the highbrow references, but an odd book. It discussed the philosophical elements of VAR without properly applying them to VAR, and proferred a solution without explaining how it would work in practise.
Christodoulou outlined the problems she had with VAR as well as the English media's reaction to it, and speculated on why it has been so difficult to implement with success in football. The basic problem is that it's quite hard to get a decent enough word count on such a narrow topic, so there is a lot of explaining stuff that any casual football fan would know already, and yet despite that, solutions aren't really offered, merely routes to solutions.
On top of that, there were two major blind spots that are so significant that to ignore them makes any proposals moot. The first relates to a point she made many times, that football is popular because of its fluid nature rather than stop-start, and thus harder to correct through technology due to less convenient interruptions. I think this overstates the nature of the game itself, baseball, NFL and cricket are more popular in Japan, USA and India. - The coverage of VAR gains more traction because there is more tabloid interest in the game and thus more need for controversy. Michael Atherton wrote that it was great to have a series without DRS shortly after it was introduced. Rugby pundits moan about the length of stoppages in the game. Neither of these sustain radio phone-ins a few days after the game has finished.
The second blind spot is assuming that spectators want the correct outcome in terms of the rules. Bar a few absolute clangers, debates and annoyance stem from the undesirable outcome, namely their team losing. It was precisely this attitude, and media furore over bad decisions courting their eyeballs and ears, that led to VAR in the first place, because "I don't like this" could be disguised by false concern over getting the decision correct. It is why decisions affecting Liverpool and Arsenal remain in the news cycle but mundane ones affecting Fulham sink without trace from consciousness. Christodoulou should recognise this from the slightly odd classroom interaction about who her pupil's 3rd best local firefighter was, but apparently hasn't.
She approached the issue from a neutral observer who wants the correct outcome (or at least, the instinctively right outcome) or a spectator who wants entertainment. But engagement is generally driven by fandom, where the important issue is who wins or loses. This can never be solved through officiating, and until cricket and rugby teams have 40,000 season ticket holders and social media handles with the team's initials in the name, comparisons with other sports will always fall short.
I wasn't convinced by her arguments either. She stated we have the worst of both worlds, because we have both interruptions and mistakes. But this assumes a single mistake is just as bad as multiple mistakes which I don't think holds, just as banning drink driving isn't the worst of both worlds because there are still car accidents and now people can't drive home from the pub either. The technical solution for ranking fouls is on the face of it fair enough, in practice the sort of bureaucratic mess that would get roasted in the media. The question of how to implement it is brushed aside because we have to trial and improve it through use as one can't foresee all the problems at the outset.
Christodoulou also rehashed the argument that the late flag leads to ghost time (so what?) and injuries that could have been prevented by blowing for offside. Does this mean linespeople that wrongly kept their flag down for players who were actually offside have also caused injuries? It is playing football that leads to injuries, so why not let teams agree to 'declare' a result early if a sufficient deficit means neither team wants to see out 90 minutes? It is an argument that sounds weighty under the guise of safety but is rather facile. Likewise, the possibilty that a player could be called offside while onside due to frame rate issues is a quirk of the system, and so rare that it is easier to accept these edge case mistakes are possible but correct to the best measurement we have.
The author isn't an idiot and is a genuine fan of the sport, but that only made this offering more disappointing. The misunderstanding as to why fans moan is such a key part as to why 'VAR' is unpopular, as fans forgive mistakes by players but hold officiating to an impossible standard of decisions they agree with as a partisan spectator. The Coventry decision was not so egregious because it felt wrong, but because the majority of those watching thought it would be brilliant if Manchester United were embarrassed, who didn't want to blame it on the attacker for lazily staying offside.
Christodoulou outlined the problems she had with VAR as well as the English media's reaction to it, and speculated on why it has been so difficult to implement with success in football. The basic problem is that it's quite hard to get a decent enough word count on such a narrow topic, so there is a lot of explaining stuff that any casual football fan would know already, and yet despite that, solutions aren't really offered, merely routes to solutions.
On top of that, there were two major blind spots that are so significant that to ignore them makes any proposals moot. The first relates to a point she made many times, that football is popular because of its fluid nature rather than stop-start, and thus harder to correct through technology due to less convenient interruptions. I think this overstates the nature of the game itself, baseball, NFL and cricket are more popular in Japan, USA and India. - The coverage of VAR gains more traction because there is more tabloid interest in the game and thus more need for controversy. Michael Atherton wrote that it was great to have a series without DRS shortly after it was introduced. Rugby pundits moan about the length of stoppages in the game. Neither of these sustain radio phone-ins a few days after the game has finished.
The second blind spot is assuming that spectators want the correct outcome in terms of the rules. Bar a few absolute clangers, debates and annoyance stem from the undesirable outcome, namely their team losing. It was precisely this attitude, and media furore over bad decisions courting their eyeballs and ears, that led to VAR in the first place, because "I don't like this" could be disguised by false concern over getting the decision correct. It is why decisions affecting Liverpool and Arsenal remain in the news cycle but mundane ones affecting Fulham sink without trace from consciousness. Christodoulou should recognise this from the slightly odd classroom interaction about who her pupil's 3rd best local firefighter was, but apparently hasn't.
She approached the issue from a neutral observer who wants the correct outcome (or at least, the instinctively right outcome) or a spectator who wants entertainment. But engagement is generally driven by fandom, where the important issue is who wins or loses. This can never be solved through officiating, and until cricket and rugby teams have 40,000 season ticket holders and social media handles with the team's initials in the name, comparisons with other sports will always fall short.
I wasn't convinced by her arguments either. She stated we have the worst of both worlds, because we have both interruptions and mistakes. But this assumes a single mistake is just as bad as multiple mistakes which I don't think holds, just as banning drink driving isn't the worst of both worlds because there are still car accidents and now people can't drive home from the pub either. The technical solution for ranking fouls is on the face of it fair enough, in practice the sort of bureaucratic mess that would get roasted in the media. The question of how to implement it is brushed aside because we have to trial and improve it through use as one can't foresee all the problems at the outset.
Christodoulou also rehashed the argument that the late flag leads to ghost time (so what?) and injuries that could have been prevented by blowing for offside. Does this mean linespeople that wrongly kept their flag down for players who were actually offside have also caused injuries? It is playing football that leads to injuries, so why not let teams agree to 'declare' a result early if a sufficient deficit means neither team wants to see out 90 minutes? It is an argument that sounds weighty under the guise of safety but is rather facile. Likewise, the possibilty that a player could be called offside while onside due to frame rate issues is a quirk of the system, and so rare that it is easier to accept these edge case mistakes are possible but correct to the best measurement we have.
The author isn't an idiot and is a genuine fan of the sport, but that only made this offering more disappointing. The misunderstanding as to why fans moan is such a key part as to why 'VAR' is unpopular, as fans forgive mistakes by players but hold officiating to an impossible standard of decisions they agree with as a partisan spectator. The Coventry decision was not so egregious because it felt wrong, but because the majority of those watching thought it would be brilliant if Manchester United were embarrassed, who didn't want to blame it on the attacker for lazily staying offside.
Displaying 1 of 1 review