Gary Neville is an English football coach, retired football player and co-owner of Salford City. Neville says VAR is ‘imperfect’ but insists the system is working well at this summer’s World Cup in Russia.
In Neville’s view, the problems with the VAR system revolve around the time frame afforded to referees when tasked with allowing VAR to intervene and whether the referees in the VAR hub are capable of using the technology efficiently enough.
He said: “That is around the quick decisions that have to be made when a penalty is not given and then the ball goes out of play so you can’t change the decision – for me, that is a fault that needs correcting.
“Why are some match officials being trusted to operate technology? They need completely different skills. VAR is completely in its infancy and I don’t think it’s been a problem using it at the World Cup, as long as they learn from the mistakes to adapt it better in the future.”