Ian Maxwell has doubled down on his belief that VAR is “absolutely working” in Scottish football.
Celtic have had many VAR decisions called wrong, from its very first game until the end of last season, but it’s not just the Champions that are getting frustrated with the technology; it seems to be a league-wide consensus.
Speaking on The Scottish Football Podcast, the SFA chief executive defended the technology despite growing fan unrest and repeated criticism over inconsistent implementation. He made it clear that it’s here to stay, and there will be no Swedish approach of scrapping VAR taken.
“I think there’s two sides to the debate,” Ian Maxwell told BBC Sportsound. “From a getting decisions right perspective, VAR is absolutely working and doing what it should. We’re getting more decisions right than we’ve ever done.
“And I think people forget what it was like pre-VAR. I think people get a bit fuzzy eyed and you remember years going by in a slightly different vein from when you were back there and refereeing was arguably worse in terms of this, or not arguably, definitely worse in terms of getting decisions right.
“I think the bit that I have some agreement with is about the in-stadium atmosphere and how do we improve that?
“What can we do to bring that understanding of what’s going on in a stadium alive? How do we improve that experience so that fans know when there’s a VAR check, they know instantly what’s happening and there’s a lot of technology that needs to come together to do that. FIFA are always looking, they’re trialling new things at the Club World Cup in terms of in-stadium communications and we’ll see where that goes.
“I fully appreciate that that’s not great. I sit in stadiums myself and wonder what’s going on at times.”
Celtic fans will no doubt point to glaring mistakes from the past campaign alone, including controversial penalty decisions, inconclusive evidence to rule goals out and baffling offside calls.
Brendan Rodgers openly expressed his frustration at multiple points last season, questioning the lack of clarity and consistency from match officials. He was actually given a touchline ban for his comments in the season before last.
We had some VAR reforms in Europe this season, like an explanation on the screens as to why a decision was made, which did provide some clarity for fans. Hopefully, progress can continue to be made and fans can grow to get used to VAR in Scottish football.
