As the world awoke yesterday morning, news began to break that VAR light could be used throughout the EFL and it got fans talking on social media.
However, it’s not just the men’s league that may welcome the system but the top flight of the women’s game too – the WSL.
The changes would not come into place until the 2023/24 season and talks are in early stages, with thoughts that the light version would have fewer cameras and would not have the offside technology, therefore not costing as much.
The level of officiating in the women’s game has come under scrutiny as the professionalism of the coaching staff and players has increased along with the exposure and highlighted further the errors within the officiating.
Kelly Simmons, the FA’s director of the women’s professional game, told The Times: “Definitely, we are really keen to do it in the WSL. We have had early discussions with the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Ltd) about looking at VAR-light and we are working on what that would look like and what would the costs be for us to deliver that.
“It is really critical that it comes in as soon as we can do it and can afford it. We have a fantastic group of referees, but without technological support you cannot see every single decision and you want those game-changing decisions to be as close to 100 per cent as possible.”
Manchester United women have had a number of decisions go against them over the past few years that has cost them points.
The most obvious one was the penalty given against captain Katie Zelem for handball despite clearly heading it out for a corner. Hopefully, VAR could stop errors such as this one from happening again in the future.
At the moment the WSL doesn’t even have goal-line technology.
However, some fans are skeptical saying before we introduce VAR, we need to improve the level of officiating since the referees are not currently full-time.
The discussions are in the early stages so time will tell how they develop.