After more than 50 years involved in football — as a player, coach and manager in what I consider the greatest team sport — I’ve seen many changes on and off the field.
There’s a reason Bill Shankly called football “the people’s game” — it belongs to the fans. Supporters spend hard-earned money on season tickets, shirts and travel to back their teams. So when asked what I’d change to improve football, I focused on what benefits the fans.
My biggest issue is that referees and VAR are becoming more important than the game itself. VAR is here to stay, but we must change how it is used. It was introduced to fix clear and obvious refereeing mistakes — the sort of incidents where there is no debate. Used that way, VAR is wonderful. But we’re seeing a worrying trend: the game is frequently stopped to check even the smallest incidents, and nothing can be celebrated until clearance arrives from Stockley Park.
Television transformed the game positively by injecting money and exposure, but intensive coverage and forensic analysis helped create VAR. Now referees are mic‑ed, filmed, and sometimes making announcements to the crowd. The time taken to make VAR decisions is outrageous and, I would say, an affront to the game.
The first change I’d make is strict time-limits for VAR reviews. Any referral to Stockley Park should last no longer than two minutes. If it takes longer, it cannot be “clear and obvious,” which is the intended threshold. If the people in the booth cannot judge a decision in that time, they should not be there.
I would also require that every VAR booth include an ex‑professional — a former manager, coach or player — alongside the replay operator, VAR and assistant VAR. They might not be experts in the letter of the laws, but they understand the flow and nuance of the game and would add context to decisions.
Time-keeping is another change I want. Games should have a visible clock that can be stopped at the referee’s discretion for injuries, VAR reviews and excessive time-wasting. Fans in the stadium could clearly see how much time remains, removing the guesswork about added time.
We must make referees “invisible” again. Currently officiating feels like empire building: too much focus on the referees and VAR rather than goals and play. Many of the problems stem from increasingly complicated amendments to the laws. Decisions now hinge on subjective phrases like “impacting on play” or “interfering with the goalkeeper,” so a player’s interpretation or the referee’s view becomes decisive.
Offside rulings, for example, have become more subjective. Under the old interpretation, a deep-lying attacker beyond the backline was offside. Now, because of lines about affecting play, you can be deeper than the last defender and still be onside. Handball laws have become so varied that few people really know what constitutes a handball anymore. Over-complication has taken the joy out of football.
Simplify the laws so decisions are clearer and the debate returns to goals and performances rather than officiating controversies.
Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
