A survey by the supporters’ association rejects technology in football and would like less of it. The reason? Too long, it takes away the joy of the celebration and it’s not even that precise…
Three out of four English fans reject VAR. They would happily do without it, they would go back to the past. They don’t like interruptions to the football game, they believe that with technology it is worse than before: too long and “too forensic” they argue, which means that too much time is wasted analyzing individual controversial episodes and with this the charm of experiencing the event for what it is disappears. Both in the stadium, where the percentage of those against is almost Bulgarian, and on television.
It is the result of a survey that the FSA (Football Supporters’ Association) conducted by interviewing thousands of fans. The football was better than before, even if imperfect. The most surprising thing is that it is not just silent checks and reviews that end up in the crosshairs, but also one of the pillars of football of the present and future, invented by popular acclaim after a series of epochal blunders, namely GLT, Goal line technology which forever eliminated doubts about whether the ball was inside or outside the goal line. Pleases? Well, only 84% of English fans firmly support it, the rest question its usefulness.
That in London and the surrounding area they did not like the technological evolution of football is not a surprise or even news. Since its first steps, its application has almost always been subject to restrictive interpretations as demonstrated by the call statistics which are much lower than in the rest of Europe. Such a clear rejection, however, is news. In 2010, an unawarded “ghost” goal by Lampard cost the national team then coached by Capello the expulsion from the World Cup, accompanied by furious controversy. Yet now that the technology is here, it is being questioned.
What’s not to like? The research analyst lays it bare in a merciless manner. 92% of fans interviewed by the FSA declared that VAR has eliminated the pleasure of spontaneous joy when scoring a goal85% showed opposition to the hypothesis that with VAR it would be more pleasant to watch a match (83% for those who expressed their opinion while standing in front of the television). For almost all of those interviewed (85%) the time used to reach a decision on an incident is reasonable but excessive and, incredibly, only 18% agreed that the overall accuracy of refereeing decisions has improved.
