From the Hand of God to the Eye of VAR

This paper presents four arguments against the use of video assistant referee (VAR) technology in professional soccer. The first is that VAR provides us with a false sense of objectivity in decision-making, thereby masking the subjective judgment that cannot be disentangled from the sport. The second is that VAR represents a neurotic-turn in human-technology relationships. Due to the availability of high-definition slow-motion replays, there is an impulse to pursue the perfection of the sport in the name of fairness. But such an approach represents a sterile and utilitarian approach to human sport which thrives on spontaneity and chance. Therefore, we argue that VAR is a technology in search of a problem rather than a solution to a long-standing need of the sport. A third and related argument is that VAR disrupts the 'flow' of the game, thereby detaching both players and spectators from the 'sensate ecstasy' of the game (Critchley 2018). We argue that the pauses in play caused by VAR reviews produce a fragmentation of experience, and in doing so, it removes players and spectators from the flow state experience often associated with play (Huizinga 2016). Fourth and finally, we argue that part of what makes for a successful player of a game is to bend the rules of the game-subtly and artfully-in pursuit of victory. As such, we suggest that, in seeking to perfect the fairness in soccer through VAR, the aesthetic beauty of mistake and transgression in the sport is lost.