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Premier League referee Anthony Taylor opened up about the challenges of implementing VAR at games with consistency and accuracy amid the widespread criticism over the use of technology.
Taylor opined that the idea of perfection fans and stakeholders of the English top-flight seem to be chasing after, doesn’t in fact exist.
“The amount of scrutiny and the amount of analysis and chat around Premier League football means everybody has a quest for perfection,” the Englishman said.
Taylor added that the fear of reprimand for errors linked to decision have spiked like never before and a system of communication in which people can speak up about the decision and its aftereffects need to be ushered in.
“In reality, perfection doesn’t exist. We’re expecting referees to get every decision right. It is really important that we actually start to talk about people being fearful of failure or mistakes.”
“We have to accept that if we don’t create the right environment for people to thrive, then people will be fearful, and that will have a negative impact on individuals and performance in the long term. Everybody’s an expert,” the 46-year-old said.
He also touched upon the assumptions around decision making and the lack of intent to have an objective view of the events. Taylor also mentioned that altering the culture around the rationale behind the officials’ decision is the order of the day.
“It brought this expectation of perfection that it would solve absolutely everybody’s problems and it would be a utopia,” he adds.
“In reality, those people were way off the mark. One week, people will say: ‘We don’t want VAR to be too forensic.’ The next week they’ll be going: ‘How has VAR not intervened in this?’
“People really need to decide what they want. You can’t one week say, ‘we don’t want to get involved because it ruins the flow of the game’ and the next week turn round and say, ‘this is a disgrace that VAR’s not intervened here,” the 46-year-old continued.
“We need to bring our heads out of the clouds sometimes to really think a little bit more logically about what the technology’s there for,” he added.
