UEFA’s Roberto Rosetti criticizes VAR reviews as unconnected to football

Roberto Rosetti, UEFA’s managing director for refereeing, went public with a blunt assessment of VAR technology that plenty of fans have been muttering into their scarves for years: the system designed to fix clear mistakes has turned into something else entirely. Speaking at the UEFA Congress on February 13, Rosetti said some video assistant referee reviews “were not connected with football.” The statement, coming from the person who oversees officiating across all 55 European football associations, carries considerably more weight than a frustrated post-match rant from a losing manager. The forensic creep Rosetti’s core complaint centers on what might be called mission drift. VAR was introduced with a simple mandate: correct clear and obvious errors. Instead, Rosetti argues, VAR has evolved into something resembling a crime scene investigation. Slow-motion replays dissect incidents frame by frame, turning marginal handballs and soft contact into multi-minute forensic examinations. Consider what happens during a typical contested handball call. The ball strikes a defender’s arm. Was the arm in a “natural” position? Was the player’s movement toward the ball or away from it? Did the...