A week into the FIFA World Cup, the video assistant referee system has generated more controversy than clarity. Fans, coaches, and former officials alike are struggling to understand why some incidents trigger a review and others do not — and the pattern so far suggests there is no reliable pattern at all.
The numbers behind the debate
Statistically, VAR at this World Cup is operating at a similar frequency to the Premier League. England's top division recorded 0.29 interventions per game last season; the World Cup sits at 0.28. On subjective decisions — where the referee is asked to visit the monitor — the Premier League averaged 0.15 per match, and the World Cup stands at 0.17.
Compare those figures with the UEFA Champions League, which logs 0.47 interventions per game and 0.36 monitor visits per match. UEFA applies a stricter interpretation of handball, leaving less room for subjectivity and fewer reasons to let an incident pass. The result is a higher volume of interventions and, with it, a stronger sense of consistency among viewers.
A week of bewildering calls
Three games in particular have drawn fierce criticism. First, Ghana coach Carlo Queiroz publicly complained after his side were denied a penalty against England for Ezri Konsa's challenge on Prince Kwabena Adu. Queiroz said the VAR had "gone for a coffee." The game ended 0-0, and many observers agreed the tackle was clumsy enough to warrant at least a monitor review.
The following day, Brazil had a goal disallowed in their 3-0 victory over Scotland, with the VAR ruling that Vinicius Jr had fouled Jack Hendry. Former World Cup assistant referee Darren Cann, speaking on Match of the Day, was unconvinced. "There is a little contact before the ball is played but I don't really feel that it's a foul," he said. Scotland, he added, were "a little fortunate."
Then Germany's 2-1 defeat to Ecuador produced the most debated sequence of the tournament. Leroy Sane's opening goal was allowed to stand despite Alexandar Pavlovic's boot clearly catching the head of Pedro Vite — an incident that struck many as an automatic VAR intervention. Goalkeeper Joe Hart, appearing on Match of the Day, was blunt: "Every single player watching this World Cup right now would have seen this incident and said immediately, that's endangering an opponent, that's a high boot, that's a foul. I think it's the wrong decision." Ellen White went further: "I'm shocked that it wasn't reviewed and it wasn't disallowed."
Minutes later, referee Tori Penso awarded Germany a penalty after Kai Havertz went down under a challenge from Joel Ordonez. This time VAR official Joe Dickerson intervened — cancelling the spot-kick after identifying a foul by Sane on Vite at the halfway line. In isolation, the intervention had some merit. Placed alongside the earlier failure to act on Pavlovic's boot, it looked deeply inconsistent.
A structural problem without an easy fix
FIFA's head of referees Pierluigi Collina has long championed a free-flowing style of play, arguing that football is a contact sport and that not all physical challenges are fouls. When on-field referees apply a higher bar, VAR must follow — and the threshold for "clear and obvious error" becomes correspondingly harder to reach.
The same tension has plagued the Premier League for years. "Minimum interference for maximum benefit" was the founding principle of VAR when it was introduced, but it depends entirely on referees making sound decisions in real time. When they do not, VAR's limited brief leaves howlers standing.
France, too, felt the effects: a Sadio Mane challenge on Kylian Mbappe was recommended for a penalty by the VAR but rejected by the on-field referee — a detail that surprised many watching. Collina and his team of 30 video match officials, working from a base in Dallas, face mounting pressure to establish a consistent standard before the tournament reaches its decisive stages.
