OPINION: Will VAR really help in the PSL?

The calls for the Premier Soccer League to bring in Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology are growing almost by the week, given the amount of errors commited by match officials in the domestic game.

ALSO READ: Brentford equaliser not properly checked by VAR officials

Yet events in the league regarded by many as the best in the world, the English Premier League, continue to show that VAR is a long way from providing a solution to controversial errors.

In England this weekend, there were displays of staggering incompetence from VAR officials across games involving Arsenal, Chelsea and Brighton.

Mike Arteta was fuming after the Gunners had been pegged back in a 1-1 draw with Brentford, with replays appearing to clearly show that Christian Norgaard was offside in the build up to Ivan Toney’s equaliser.

It later emerged that VAR Lee Mason had forgotten to draw the lines that would have proved Norgaard was offside.

In the Brighton-Crystal Palace game, meanwhile, a similar incident occured where VAR John Brooks ruled that Pervis Estupinan was offside as he ruled out a goal from the Ecuadorian for Brighton.

But it later emerged Brooks had drawn the wrong offside line, and that Estupinan was onside and the goal should have stood.

When Chelsea took on West Ham, meanwhile, VAR Neil Swarbrick, who is the Premier League’s Head of VAR, decided there was nothing to look at when West Ham’s Thomas Soucek fell to the ground and clearly blocked a late Conor Gallagher shot with his arm.

The handball rule has the caveat of it not being deemed an offence if a player’s hand is struck accidentally in a natural position, but this quite simply looked like a save a goalkeeper would have been proud of, and surely should have resulted in a spot kick.

Soucek even made a cheeky reference after the game to the fact that his father had been a goalkeeper!

No country has bungled VAR quite as badly as England, with VAR officials unable to come to the correct decision even with the benefit of multiple replays.

Brighton and Arsenal at least received an apology from England’s ruling body for referees, the PGMOL, though that is the definition of after the horse has bolted.

No apology

Chelsea got no such apology, or an explanation as to why Swarbrick took all the time in the world just before to decide on a Declan Rice offside decision (he got that right), and then took no time at all to rule out Chelsea’s handball claim.

The point of this in reference to South Africa is that even if the PSL bring in VAR, there can be no guarantees they will have a system that will be better for the local game, as long as the officials in the VAR room are as unfit for purpose as those on the field of play.

If England, with a professional body of refs cannot get it right, what chance do South Africa, with part-time referees, have?