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PGMOL Referees' Chief Howard Webb remarked in a latest statement that VAR errors in Premier League matches have reduced by 80% in the 2024-25 season. The advanced system introduced five years back attracted a lot of controversial debate during Premier League matches. According to the report by Key Match Incidents Panel (KMI), there were around 31 incorrect decisions through VAR during the 2023-24 Premier League season.
However, Howard Webb, the Chief Referring Officer at Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), revealed that the VAR errors have been reduced considerably in the new season. Moreover, the independent survey conducted by the Premier League clubs claims that 4 out of 5 fans want the technology to remain in the game. Webb, the 2010 FIFA World Cup final referee aims to improve the overall decision-making standards in the game with VAR, which he believes has positively impacted games.
VAR has brought vast improvement in decision making: Howard Webb claims
Howard Webb is confident that VAR errors, which were earlier claimed to be high, have reduced to just 20%. This season, there were very few instances of errors through VAR. However, he thinks the expectation hasn't been met yet. “I don’t think we managed expectations well in terms of VAR,” Webb told during an interview with the Stick to Football podcast in partnership with Sky Bet.
“We knew it was always going to be a situation where it was going to do well on those clear situations, the ones where you think, ‘That’s clearly wrong on first view’. We have this independent panel which has ex-players on it, and they judge each decision each week, and according to the panel there has only been two VAR errors this season compared to 10 at the same time last year, ” he remarked.
Webb thinks the decision-making has been quick with VAR now. The average delay last season was 70 seconds per game, and this year, it was reduced to 25 seconds.
He acknowledged that when Bruno Fernandes, the captain of Manchester United, was sent off against Tottenham Hotspur last month, VAR did nothing to stop it. Fernandes was shown a straight red card by referee Chris Kavanagh in the 42nd minute for a late challenge on James Maddison of Tottenham.
However, replays revealed that Fernandes caught Maddison with the side of his boot, despite the Portuguese midfielder seemingly catching him with a high studs-up challenge.
