In the summer of 2024, sport events were far from few. From cycling to soccer, people sat in front of the screens watching their favorite team, or person, compete. In Europe, the European Football Championship took place across Germany. As I watched the matches, I was repeatedly faced with the endless V.A.R., meaning Video Assistant Referee, that took place when a goal
or foul occurred. After players had scored, they barely celebrated. Instead, they waited for the call of a person sitting in a room and analyzing if what just happened was a foul or not. Now, every dramatical goal-scoring moment that might define a country’s sport history had to wait for V.A.R. To me, this is not how soccer should be played. Emotion, is what sport is mostly built upon, has been thrown out the window because of technology such as V.A.R.
V.A.R is a technology officiating system that intends to help on-field referees make accurate decisions during critical junctures of a soccer match. While this might sound good, soccer is not as clear as people might want it to be. In other sports, such as tennis, we see similar technologies utilized to achieve a fairer game. However, the difference between soccer and tennis is that tennis utilizes a system called Hawk-Eye that simply tracks if the ball was in or out. In soccer, the game is much more complicated. For example, handball, a definition in soccer that seems to change every game, or the process of red and yellow cards signaling a foul, are both events which are far from clear. Therefore, the search for perfection in a soccer match is impossible, and having all those decisions, such as handball and cards signalling fouls, decided by someone sitting in a room watching everythin, is not what this game is about.
In 1986, during one of the most watched sporting events, the World Cup, Argentina played England in the quarter-finals. Diego Maradona, regarded by many as the most influential soccer player of all time, scored a goal with what appeared to be his hand. The referees did not have a clear view and therefore allowed the goal, giving Argentina a 1–0 lead in a crucial moment. Looking back, the goal was illegal because Maradona used his hand to score. However, when Maradona was asked about the incident, he stated that a little help from the hand of God made the goal. Years later, the goal is still remembered today as the “hand of god.” With V.A.R., however, this goal would have probably been denied.
To me, events like these are what makes soccer a great sport, anything can happen. The sport is both played and refereed by people, so implementing all possible modern technology will only stifle the human touch we all adore in the game. While modern technology should and will have a place in industries around the world, the soccer field is one place where it should be limited. People need to realize that emotions and mistakes are always a part of our life, especially in sports. We live in a world where we will soon lose our own voice to tools like Chat-GPT, a one-stop oracle for solving all of our own mistakes. Soccer, however, is one example of something we can try to save from losing its beautiful voice of mistakes to the perilous of V.A.R.
