FA chief executive Mark Bullingham says VAR must be quicker and more transparent, amid criticism after Liverpool saw a goal wrongly ruled out for offside against Tottenham.
VAR Darren England "lost sight of what the on-field decision was" after going through his process "pretty quickly" when checking if Luis Diaz was offside as he opened the scoring in last month's primetime Premier League game, according to PGMOL chief Howard Webb.
Spurs went on to secure a controversial win and went top of the Premier League table just before the international break.
Speaking at Leaders Week at Twickenham Stadium, FA CEO Bullingham knocked back calls to scrap VAR but is exploring further increasing transparency around controversial decisions. He said: "Yes, we’ve had conversations like that. It’s also a conversation about how much you let the fan in.
"I would love to get to the point where fans have even more access to the conversations that take place between the VAR and referees.
"I understand that the VAR already has an incredibly hard job and sometimes their views could be that there are language issues, especially in international tournaments, they don’t want any conversations being taken out of context. I understand that.
"What we’ve done is make a step forward showing conversations and having VAR explained.
"FIFA are exploring it and I can see that being rolled out more broadly to bring transparency to fans around decisions. It is a complicated area but I do think that’s a direction of travel."
The debate around VAR extends to both speed and the accuracy of decisions. Bullingham is excited that semi-automated offsides could soon be introduced to the highest levels of English football.
He hopes it will speed up decision making to improve the matchday experience for frustrated supporters.
He added: “You should never have an experience where you’re taking it away from the fans.
"Of course, you used to have people complaining about the decisions and it is important to get decisions right and that’s a starting point, but in terms of technology the impression is: are there ways you can make decisions quicker?
"I think everyone hates that long pause in the stadium or at home. You are seeing technological innovations in terms of semi-autonomous offside and that could eventually go autonomous.
"That would mean very accurate decisions very, very quickly. I think that’s an area we absolutely need to keep exploring.
"I think also, with VAR, where people are in a different place is there are some people who want almost every decision to go to VAR where we are getting almost every decision entirely accurate.
"I don’t think that’s right. I think it really breaks the flow of the game too much. Of course, with VAR, you have to be quite careful not to interrupt the game more than it already it."
