Ex-Liverpool and Germany midfielder Didi Hamann believes that VAR technology is "not sustainable" in professional football and sees the game as "less watchable" with the frequent breaks in action.
Ever since the highly-anticipated implementation of VAR rooms in the Premier League for the 2019-20 season - with all top-flight clubs in November 2018 unanimously voting for its introduction - officials have been at the centre of weekly controversy surrounding their use of the technology.
The PGMOL have often issued retrospective apologies to clubs for incorrect decisions over the past few years, a notable example being Brentford's wrongly allowed goal against Arsenal in February 2023, which led to Lee Mason resigning from his role.
Back in September, Liverpool were on the wrong end of a "significant human error" when Luis Diaz had a goal incorrectly disallowed for offside in a 2-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur; the Colombian was in an onside position, but VAR official Darren England failed to realise that the linesman had raised his flag on the pitch.
More recently, Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin was sent off for a high tackle on Nathaniel Clyne, with Chris Kavanagh issuing a red card upon a check of the pitchside monitor, but the Englishman's sanction has since been overturned on appeal.
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Speaking to Sports Mole with King Casino Bonus, Hamann - a vocal critic of VAR - cited recent DFB-Pokal fixtures where technology was not in use, claiming that the officials' decisions were "spot on" barring a couple of errors.
"VAR came in to assist the referee, and nobody really talked about that. There were two rounds in the German Cup, we didn't have VAR because we had a lot of amateur teams who couldn't have the cameras in the ground," Hamann explained.
"In 20 games, we had one or two incidents where the referees could have done different, the rest was spot on. It was flawless. The way the referee officiated the game was flawless, because they were in charge of the game. Referees these days whistle far too quickly, because if somebody goes down in the box, they give it, and they say 'if there was nothing, the assistant will tell me'."
A few months on from the scandalous Diaz call, Liverpool were the beneficiaries of a contentious VAR decision in their New Years's Day win over Newcastle United, where Diogo Jota hit the turf a couple of seconds after skipping past Martin Dubravka with the goal gaping.
Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot and was backed up by the VAR room, but Hamann has insisted that Jota's tumble was not spot kick worthy "in a million years", and he has lamented the relationship between the referee and his assistants as "not healthy".
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"Iif the referee was in charge with no VAR, not in a million years that would be a penalty. He's taken two steps, he sees he can't get there and then he throws himself to the floor. It's not a penalty, if the referee was in charge he wouldn't have given it," Hamann said of the Jota penalty incident.
"What happens now, he's given it, and he says 'have a look at it and if it's no penalty you'll tell me'. What happened there, the assistant looks at it and says 'hold tight'. There's the slightest bit of contact.
"For me and I think for everybody who played the game, this is not the reason why he went down. But the assistant says 'oh there's contact'. So everybody's done their job, but we still got the wrong decision. Now, the referee assists the assistant, which is not healthy, because they get far too many wrong decisions.
"I don't think it's sustainable. I can live with a bad call, if a referee doesn't see anything or if he's unsighted, not a problem. But I can't have if we have the wrong call 10 times with video assistance. Something has to give. Football lives on a fluent game, the more breaks we have the less watchable the game is."
Hamann won nine major trophies with Liverpool during a seven-year spell at Anfield between 1999 and 2006, while also representing Bayern Munich, Newcastle United, Manchester City and MK Dons in his glittering playing career.
Ben Knapton
