VAR is taking too long – is a time limit the answer?

It was another day of video assistant referee (VAR) frustration. Supporters were left in the dark for minutes on end.

Fans at three Premier League games on Sunday had lengthy waits while 22 players stood around, hands on hips. Time ebbed away. Two, three and, in one case, four minutes.

Professional Match Game Officials (PMGO) insists that over the past couple of seasons VAR reviews are getting quicker.

But with extended stoppages, especially when they happen in clusters on one day, the fans’ lived experience is very different.

“The problem is what it is doing to the games, to the spectacle, with the amount of time it takes to get there,” Danny Murphy told BBC Sport.

“To wait that long is frustrating for everyone watching the game and I think everyone who loves football, generally, feels the frustration. But what can we do?”

A time limit on VAR checks and reviews has been suggested whenever there has been a day of interminable delays.

BBC Sport understands that at no point has it been seriously considered by Fifa or the International Football Association Board (Ifab).

How long would you give the VAR to make a decision? Thirty seconds? One minute?

And what if there were multiple incidents to look at?

A handball? And an offside? What about a handball and two offsides?

Where does the time start and end?

“I have always been of the opinion that I would take less right decisions and have the more traditional aspect of enjoying those moments,” Murphy added.

This is an important point. A time limit may well mean there are more mistakes. Missed interventions and correct on-field decisions being changed.

Is there a worthwhile pay off between some saved time but more controversy?

Imagine the headlines the first time an error is made because the VAR ran out of time?

Two examples in particular stand out.

In February 2023, Darwin Nunez scored for Liverpool at Newcastle. Kieran Trippier was adamant that the striker had handled the ball.

When the VAR checked the first few camera angles it seemed to be definitive. The ball had touched Nunez’s right arm. The goal should be ruled out.

More than 40 seconds had elapsed before the angle was found which clearly showed the ball only touched Nunez’s chest.

Place a 30-second time limit and that goal gets wrongly disallowed for a supposedly factual handball.

Liverpool’s Diogo Jota was awarded a penalty against Wolves last season.

From the first few angles it looked like Emmanuel Agbadou had fouled Jota. The VAR team appeared to ready to clear the spot-kick.

Then a minute into the review the VAR was shown the angle with proved Jota had in fact initiated the contact. The penalty was overturned.

With a time limit that most likely stays a penalty.

Fulham boss Marco Silva has had his fair share of gripes with VAR decisions. He would still rather get the right final decision even if it takes a bit longer.

“I think the main thing from VAR is to correct things and to get it right,” Silva said after Sunday’s defeat at Manchester United.

There’s a tendency to think all things would remain equal. That a VAR would make decisions as they do now while time was ticking away.

In August, Graham Scott, who retired as a VAR at the end of last season, described how “an imaginary clock starts ticking in your head and the sense of foreboding is palpable”.

If it is like that when the time is only psychological, imagine the pressure if the seconds really were counting down in front of the VAR’s eyes.

PGMO knows reviews take too long at times but the nature of VAR means you can never eradicate the longer delays.

From the VAR clips shown on Match Officials Mic’d Up it is clear there often has to be a level of discussion. Not all reviews can be straightforward.

Sometimes there can be too much debate.

There was the four-minute stoppage to rule out Aston Villa’s goal against Brentford.

There was the five minutes and 30 seconds needed to rule out Manchester City’s goal at Newcastle in the EFL Cup, for a dubious offside call against Erling Haaland which PGMO admits was too forensic.

“It’s frustrating for the fans, the players,” Troy Deeney told BBC Sport.

“When they score, you don’t even celebrate now. To me, it’s kind of got to that point now where you feel like they’re looking for a reason to chalk a goal off.

“Football, especially as a form of entertainment, is all about goals.”

The delays are all part of this.

It is the perception that VAR as a concept will always have to battle with. Even though this season interventions have led to 21 goals being scored, and 22 disallowed.

Maybe the VAR team could be made more aware how long they are taking with a timer without there being a hard limit.