Howard Webb will soon be on a mission to make VAR a positive part of the match-day experience for Premier League fans.
The 2010 World Cup final referee, who has spent the last six years helping to improve MLS officials in the USA and Canada, has been confirmed as the PGMOL’s first Chief Refereeing Officer. Webb, 51, will replace outgoing Managing Director Mike Riley - probably when his contract ends at the conclusion of MLS’s season in October.
And he admitted that a big part of his brief will be to open up the lines of communication between referees and supporters who have been alienated by the increasing impact of technology on the game. One of the initiatives introduced in MLS has been to allow media access to the conversations that take place between VAR and match officials.
This information can then be passed on to supporters to explain game-changing decisions. But critics of VAR feel that those conversations should be made public while the decisions are being taken on the pitch.
Webb said: “I think where work needs to happen is to make VAR more accessible. In the USA, there is a culture of technology being used in sport to help officials get decisions right and I’ll need time to see how things happen in England.
“We have meetings every two weeks, when we get all of our broadcasters and writers onto a call and talk about things like VAR. We'll let them hear the conversation between the officials. They can see the workings behind it - and that's really beneficial.
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“Can we go further? Well there are conversations taking place about what can be done to improve communication. I’m onboard with that because if fans don’t know what is happening then they automatically reject it. If you show people what's happening and why, they might not always agree with the final decision, but at least they’re more willing to accept it.”
Webb, who was also officiated at the 2010 Champions League final during an 11-year Premier League career when he was regarded as the world’s No 1 whistleblower, is also open to the suggestion that time-keeping should be taken out of the hands of referees. And he has also been part of the discussion gaining traction in America of 60-minute games where the clock is stopped every time the ball goes out of play.
But the former South Yorkshire Police officer warns that human error will always be part of the game despite the new ideas and growing use of technology. He said: “The more you can draw the curtain back and humanise officials, the better I think it will be.
“Some decisions are black or white. But a lot of the game is played in this grey zone, where there is subjectivity. VAR has been a really good addition to the game in terms of cutting out those clear and obvious errors.
“But we have to manage expectations here to say, 'look, it's not gonna give you the definitive answer.' Even the person in the VAR booth still makes a judgement based on what they’ve seen and what they feel and think as a human being.”
