The Video Assistant Referee — VAR — arrived in the Premier League ahead of the 2019/20 season. Six full seasons later, the data is in. The fans are vocal. The Premier League itself periodically threatens to scrap it. And the actual evidence on what VAR has changed is more nuanced than either side admits.
What VAR was supposed to fix
The 2018 working group at the Premier League pitched VAR with three goals: catch clear and obvious refereeing errors, increase fairness in penalty decisions, and reduce the long lag between bad call and consequence. The promise was that the technology would intervene only on “clear and obvious” mistakes, leaving the on-field referee in control of grey-area judgements.
In practice, the threshold has drifted. The 2024/25 season produced more VAR-overturned decisions per match than any previous year — partly because referees now defer more readily to the booth.
Penalty rate: the headline change
Penalties per match are up across the VAR era. The pre-VAR average (2014–2019) was 0.21 per match. The five VAR seasons average 0.29 — roughly one extra penalty every four matches. Most of the increase comes from handball calls, where VAR can review slow-motion replays of contact that the on-field referee missed in real time.
This has consequences for shot conversion rates and total goals. Goals per match in 2024/25 were 2.85 — a 12-year high. While not all of that increase is attributable to VAR, the additional penalties account for roughly 0.1 goals per match.
Time-on-ball reduction
A less-discussed effect: actual ball-in-play time has fallen by about 90 seconds per match across the VAR era. Reviews take time. Even quick checks add 30–60 seconds; full pitch-side reviews can run 3+ minutes. The Premier League added stoppage-time recovery in 2023 to compensate, which has stretched matches to an average of 98 minutes total.
For broadcasters, this changes the rhythm of TV coverage. Sky Sports and TNT Sports have both reworked their match production — adding tactical replay segments and “VAR explainer” overlays to fill the dead air during reviews.
Fan sentiment: divided
YouGov polling across 2023 and 2024 showed roughly 55% of Premier League viewers want VAR retained, 35% want it reformed (most commonly: scrap automated offside, keep penalty/red review), and 10% want it scrapped entirely. The numbers are remarkably stable — VAR is unpopular in the moments of disputed calls, but on aggregate, fans still prefer it to a no-VAR baseline.
The broadcast rights angle
VAR has affected broadcast rights negotiations too. When Sky Sports and TNT Sports renewed their Premier League deals in 2024, both included VAR-specific production clauses — minimum requirements for showing the review angles to viewers, and access to the referee’s audio explanation post-match. This was a fan demand surfaced through 2022/23 backlash about reviews happening “in secret”.
The editorial verdict
VAR is here to stay. Whether the league reforms its scope — particularly the controversial automated offside system — remains the open question for 2026/27. The technology works; the application of it is what fans want changed.
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