Former referee disagrees with Premier League VAR claim
Former PGMOL head Keith Hackett has stated that he disagrees with the Premier League over claims that is has been a success. Daniel Wales reports.
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00:00 The Premier League has claimed that VAR has led to a 14% increase in correct decisions,
00:06 with the majority of supporters being in favour of the technology.
00:10 However, former head of the officiating body the PGMOL, Keith Hackett, told me he does not agree.
00:17 Firstly, Keith, just to start things quite generally, in your opinion, has VAR been a success or a failure?
00:26 I think at this moment in time, I think it's a bit of both, but mainly leading towards failure.
00:35 One of the things that Howard Webber has tried to do as boss of the PGMOL is to operate in a more transparent manner.
00:43 And we were able to see a show where we could listen in to the conversation between VAR and the referee.
00:53 What I found about that, given my past experience of problems that we had when I first introduced communication kits into refereeing,
01:03 was all the chatter and friendly banter between the referee and assistants whilst the game was going on.
01:14 So I had the referees in the group with some of the assistants and we decided to write a criteria.
01:21 So for me, there was too much chatter. And as a result of that, I was surprised that the PGMOL haven't got a very strict protocol and criteria around the conversation.
01:37 I think it needs to be brief, but it needs to be exact.
01:41 And for me, clearly, this breakdown of the weekend has highlighted many errors and many actions that I feel they need to take.
01:53 And so for you, given what you just said there, do some of the issues that have arisen in recent months in the Premier League,
02:02 do they come down to the people who are operating the technology, those on field, those off field, more so than the technology actually itself?
02:10 And if it was operated by people who perhaps had better standards, it would actually work to a good standard.
02:19 I still feel that there is a massive shortfall in a lack of transparency for the fans in the stadium.
02:26 And I'm clear that I want the fans to be able to listen into the conversation in its entirety between the referee and the VAR office in London.
02:42 Now, I don't think I'm asking too much. I think that that is what we see in rugby and cricket.
02:50 And I have to say that in that situation, those situations that arise, it analyses the referee.
02:58 It doesn't take away from the referee. It actually says, we're included. We know what's going off.