Satire Saturday | VAR or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

An intense and incredible stare was shared between Warnock, then manager of Cardiff City, and three referees after his side lost to Chelsea. Not the fluid, youngster playing and transfer banned Chelsea we watch now but the Maurizio Sarri version of Chelsea that won trophies and finished third in style. Somehow the fact that Cesar Azpilicueta’s entire body was offside failed to hit the linesman’s radar that changed the game and the rest is as they say history. Champions League history as Manchester City and Tottenham battled each other in a game that lacked any tactical ingenuity but gave way to pure and unadulterated attacking football.

Like Geoff Shreeves learnt after he asked one too many questions about happiness, Liverpool, goals, Manchester City and effectively anything to do with a football game. Either way this is a masterclass to teach you or rather show you how to live with football despite the fact that your favourite pass-time is being enveloped by a group of killer robots that are here to stay. It’s called being blissfully ignorant in the face of danger and while there might be a fancier way to say it, for us simple folk that’s all it is. Something that Jose Mourinho has mastered in his short time as a football manager although at times it feels like the Spurs boss is the man running things.

For sports that few care about like Cricket, NBA and even the NFL the stopping and starting gives way to something much better, advertisements but doing the same here rubs out the very essence of football. And that’s the way life started out and we humans eventually became comfortable with what should have been a scary intrusion into our lives but with social media already taking over, we seemed well adjusted. It’s the same story that’s been repeated for decades now in movies, video-games, TV shows, Netflix Originals and on a thousand other platforms. Will Smith has done like ten of these and it always ends the same way, with them taking over and him saving the world.

And that’s where the jokes ended and the chaos started but so what? So what if suddenly, as if by a magical wave of a wand the referees became subservient to their overlords at Stockley Park and then the world of football was plunged into a hole? John Lundstram’s big toe’s best friend was found offside, Roberto Firmino’s arm-pit hair was found offside, Nicolas Pepe’s legs were broken but no foul was given, Giovani Lo Celso dropped a bookcase, a car and then stamped on Cesar Azpilicueta’s leg but no foul was given, Sergio Ramos’ entire body was offside but his aura wasn’t and no foul was given.

Blissful ignorance because in our world, that doesn’t exist and while VAR continues to micro analyse the micro details of a sport that has far too many grey areas to do that, we ignore it and instead focus on the bright side. Because the technology has never been the problem, it is FIFA tested after all. The same organisation that hired Sepp Blatter to do things. Yes, the same man who said women’s football would be more popular if the players wore tighter shorts. But that’s beside the point because the technology has never been the problem, it is FIFA tested after all.

So, what if the moment you add the human element, the fact that England, and only England, refuse to use the monitors and so what if a 60 plus-year-old man has something to say about the problems that the Premier League are facing? 60 plus year-old men always have something to say but what if this one actually has something smart to say? What if FIFA does take over the implementation of the VAR from the IFAB (already done), and bring about changes to the rules (already done) and implement them without the use of a tough but battle-hardened referee’s association (data not found)? Or rather what-if the entire world does what the La Liga are doing?