As good as it is to have football fans back in stadiums, we had better get used to seeing them surrounded by empty seats.
This is nothing to do with Covid-19, but all down to that other insidious blight on the game – VAR.
Nearly half – 44% – of respondents, in the biggest survey ever undertaken about the system, have said it makes them less likely to attend matches.
And almost all said that watching had become less enjoyable.
This was the verdict of the 33,243 fans that the Football Supporters Association (FSA) in England surveyed, with match-goers (95%) only fractionally more inconvenienced than those on the sofa (94%).
Chief among a litany of complaints is that VAR spoils the spontaneous joy of celebrating a goal which was cited by 95%.
Only slightly less irksome is the time taken to decide (91% in the stadium, 86% among TV viewers).
And an overall 77% claimed that better explanations were needed.
It’s the most thorough research on VAR’s impact since it was introduced into the EPL in 2019-20, it has to be said, with the best intentions and wide support.
All 20 EPL clubs voted for it and the majority of fans were also in favour – a victimhood about refereeing errors far outweighing those as the beneficiary.
Quite a turnaround then, but the response was expected after two torturous seasons when most of football feels the victim.
Every weekend – and almost every game – contentious decisions have been spoiling the enjoyment of watching – even for neutrals.
Indeed, no enemy of the game could have devised anything more damaging to the spectacle of a spontaneous, free-flowing sport than the constant killjoy interruptions that VAR has foisted upon it. And often for the most pernickety of reasons.
Indeed, you half expect that alongside the team lists will be one of those human anatomy charts you see in a doctor’s surgery – to highlight the various parts of the body that can be offside.
Perhaps, here we should go back to why offside was introduced in the first place – to prevent players from loitering all game long in the opposing box. They were known as “goal-hangers” and outlawed in 1863.
Having a toe, armpit or nose 2mm closer to the goal than a defender’s toe or whatever doesn’t make a goal-hanger or constitute cheating.
But laws that might have been drawn up by Pol Pot and administered by the Gestapo don’t help either.
Take the handball rule which was to prevent the likes of William Webb Ellis from catching the ball and running with it and thus founding an entirely different sport.
Having the ball blasted from 3m at an arm in a natural position doesn’t amount to cheating either but can be enough for VAR to award a game-changing penalty.
And, VAR, remember, was brought in to stop the howlers such as the Maradona Hand of God, the Thierry Henry handball and the Frank Lampard “goal” that never was.
It was meant to be a safety net – only “clear and obvious” we were assured.
But what we are getting is unclear and obscure, and often after a muddle.
Delivered in a high-handed way, there’s a detachment and delay that often suggests the decision is being relayed from Mars.
Also telling was that 78% of fans felt that football was less suited to video adjudication than other sports such as cricket, tennis and rugby – which really is the nub of the matter.
The other three are stop-start sports by nature and a slightly longer delay to get the right decision seems worth it – especially as it is fully explained (as in cricket and rugby) while tennis’s instant Hawkeye replay often heightens the tension.
In football, the review is greeted by dread on one side and a general groan among neutrals. It’s widely seen as killing the orgasmic moment yet when this was put to Fifa president Gianni Infantino, he insisted: “It adds another layer of adrenalin.”
If that sounds like Doublethink from Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, VAR’s traditional defence is that it gets a fraction more decisions right and is worth the wait. But does it?
Delays are because even with umpteen replays, it can still be hard to decide. So why hold up a game, irritate players and turn away spectators for five minutes?
The point is football is just a game, and for all the money in it, it’s entertainment.
It’ neither life nor death, or, if you’ll pardon the phrase, rocket science, where millimetres do matter. And in the pursuit of perfection, it is being ruined.
But we don’t want perfection, we were happy with the way it was. A thrilling, flowing, spontaneous game that conquered the world.
A safety net for howlers was what we were promised but we got a quack cure that is killing the patient who wasn’t sick in the first place.
Last season VAR was tolerated because there were no crowds to protest but next season there will be.
Unless it is scaled back, speeded up – there is new technology for offside being mulled – and used only for those howlers, the fans will vote with their feet.
Or, now we know how they really feel about it, they’ll protest.
The FSA will send the findings of the survey to the EPL, and managers will also have their say.
The problem is that, as with the Super League, other European countries do not feel as strongly about it. And we’ve heard what Big Brother at FIFA thinks.
But it was the English fans that brought down the Super League so who knows?
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.