Premier League referees have reportedly made fewer errors than ever before in the 2024-2025 season.
Since the 2019-2020 season, Video Assisted Referee (VAR) has been used in England’s top flight.
The purpose of this was to reduce the amount of mistakes that cost teams during matches but its effectiveness has regularly been called into question by fans.
Methods such as goal line technology and semi-automated offside technology have also been introduced in recent years but VAR remains by far the most controversial amongst supporters.
Nonetheless, The Sun report that “refereeing errors fell to an all-time low in the Premier League last season – despite a series of controversies.”
The report states that, “according to the Prem’s ‘Key Match Incident Panel’ – made up of former players, managers and refs – there were just 18 VAR errors over the 380 matches of the 2024-25 campaign, which is an “all-time low.”
That results in a 42% drop on the 31 errors made in the 2023-2024 season.
The Sun claim that “the reduction was largely down to fewer missed VAR interventions on subjective decisions.”
Man United fans will certainly have felt aggrieved by a few decisions this season and won’t be toasting the success of VAR.
Former United head coach, Erik ten Hag, will likely not be impressed, as in his final match, Matthijs De Ligt was wrongly punished and a late penalty was awarded to West Ham United in October.
Bruno Fernandes was also harshly sent off against Tottenham Hotspur in September in the first half of the game, meaning the Reds had to play the entire second half with ten men and would eventually lose 0-3.
One universal positive that all fans can agree on however, is that “VAR checks were significantly speeded up, with the average delay per match due to VAR down to 39 seconds from 64 seconds in the previous season.”
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
