Football lawmakers make ‘one of thousands’ claim about Liverpool VAR moment amid audio decision

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) has ruled out broadcasting the audio of VAR decisions live during games.

There has been a growing pressure from the footballing world to hold referees accountable for their mistakes and hear the ongoing process of the VAR teams during games, especially after glaring errors such as Liverpool’s Luis Diaz offside goal, which later saw the PGMOL come out and apologise for their clear and obvious mistake.

As is stands, the IFAB has only allowed audio to be shared in the days after a match, with the Premier League only doing so following glaring errors that saw fan and media pressure rise to an insurmountable level. However, it seems we are not close to hearing the ongoing conversations between the VAR team live during a game.

“I categorically say no, they shouldn’t [be played out live,]” IFAB secretary and chief executive Lukas Brud told BBC Radio 5 Live. “I was allowed to observe and see communication between match officials during a review and it is quite a chaotic situation, not in a negative sense but there’s many people talking at the same time and I think it would be counterproductive for anyone to listen to all those voices talking to each other.

“Then you have the VAR and the assistant VAR, the replay operators, the referee and maybe even the assistant referees and fourth official, so all of a sudden it becomes quite a chaotic experience.

“We have given the green light to test the announcement of decisions to bring a little more transparency to decision making, but we are not prepared at this point to open up communication live to the audience.”

The comments from the top of the IFAB do not take into account how VAR works in other sports; it’s successfully used in the likes of Rugby and Cricket for example in a calm and collective manner, and from the audio we heard surronding the Diaz incident, it’s clear the people and the procedures in place working within the environment make it chaotic.

His final comments will certainly frustrate Liverpool and football fans further: “We always have to remember these things don’t happen very often,” he added referring to incidents such as Diaz’s disallowed goal. “We should not immediately start questioning the entire setup because in one of thousands of matches this situation has occurred.

“Certainly we are going to improve if need be certain areas of VAR. Whether we need to solve an issue where humans made an error, let’s see.”