It would’ve been better if VAR had never existed, here’s the Premier League rule change I’d introduce to sort it out
INTO the rumpus about VAR, a new variant steps.
Sin bins have long been of interest, even to an experiment in lower leagues which has been proclaimed a success.
Bins have long been acceptable in rugby too and many other sports.
I’m no expert on brutes hurtling into each other at speed but it can be brief entertainment amid the endless gaps for head injuries and checking what a pitchside telly made of things.
No, not wrestling, I mean Sir Clive Woodward’s sport.
Now the International Football Association Board (IFAB, although not so fab after VAR introduction) are declaring serious interest in sin bins.
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It’s temporary ten-minute dismissals for offences like dissent. No wonder when dissent leapt from 174 offenders to 345 in our pro game last season.
It’s a blight but it’d be useful to know how many offences occurred after dubious VAR rulings which have left football feeling like it’s being strangled.
VAR should be limited to offside, goal-line checks . . . and little else.
It’s now a ref’s crutch rather than an aid and games are often decided by VAR stinkers, with Newcastle’s Champions League draw at Paris Saint-Germain this week the most recent example.
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Changes since the Premier League was founded in 1992 are prodigious and mostly positive but include VAR.
Sir Bobby Charlton and Terry Venables, both of whom died this autumn, were not much involved in the Prem as it grew from its infancy.
It became rich and influential and, as a player and manager, Venables in particular must have been envious of rewards in the latter years of his 80.
Twice capped by England, he was a good enough midfielder to bank more than £100,00-a-week these days.
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A clever and admired man, his CV included a LaLiga title with Barcelona, an FA Cup with Tottenham and numerous promotions, so he’d have regarded £100,000 as penny-pinching.
Charlton was a football great as good as George Best in a Manchester United forward line that also boasted another exciting player in Denis Law.
I doubt there has ever been a better front three anywhere but English football then wasn’t rich enough to compete with foreign big shots for stars.
It is different today in a world where you can bring in players from, say, South Korea to North Macedonia.
It was the Prem who supercharged the change and now their squads are only 30 per cent British on average.
But Scottish players are nearly as rare as 100 per cent proof whisky.
Not all changes are for the best, though, and although the temptation to cheat has always existed, VAR appears to have encouraged players to take penalty area dives and fake head injuries in order to waste time.
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But better coaching has heightened entertainment and helped attract capacity crowds to 95 per cent of games and a massive overflow on television.
Once regarded as the enemy at the gate, TV is now beloved as publisher and paymaster.