The IT Crowd

Watching Wimbledon last weekend, I noticed – after more than an hour – that there were no line judges. That I almost didn’t notice at all is testament to the seamless way this has been introduced. Pity, I quite liked to watch the ‘who’ll blink first’ contest between elegantly-dressed volunteer and hundred mph yellow ball. But time moves on, I guess.

It's not flawless. The technology failed a few times during the fortnight, and, heaven forbid, the umpires had to get involved. But the line judges were flawed too - they were human, after all - so what has actually happened is that the calls have become a little more accurate and no one risked getting hurt (although I imagine the feelings of the volunteers were more than hurt at the decision to push them aside in favour of electronic calls).

As a tennis fan – armchair or live (I’ve been quite a few times to the home of British tennis) – I don’t think it made much difference. Yes, it’s a tradition, but so is queuing in a pitch-dark park throughout the night hoping to get tickets, and I wished they’d get rid of that one too.

The only element of crowd interaction that has been lost is the clapping as they waited for the ball to bounce in or out on the big screen, but it didn’t feel like a big loss, if a loss at all. Tennis has embraced technology for a while now, and it keeps evolving.

What’s really interesting is that it rarely impacts either the sport, players, the fans or their enjoyment of the game.

Rugby (both codes) and cricket are similar in that respect. They have all used a form of video referee to ensure the rules of the game are adhered to and the end result is the right one. I listened to a British Lions rugby game – on the same weekend I watched the tennis - and the opposition (the Waratahs) had a try ruled out by the TMO (Television Match Official) then shortly afterwards the Lions scored. Just before half-time, another Waratahs try was ‘sent upstairs’ and eventually awarded, but there was no sense of evening things out. It was the letter of the law that mattered and while the crowd jeered and cheered respectively at the outcomes, they also respected them completely and even if the delays took a couple of minutes or more to resolve, it was part and parcel of the game, and therefore the fan’s experience.

Cricket fans know that each team has a number of reviews they can use to challenge the decisions so that is baked into the way a game unfolds. The DRS (Decision Review System) is one of the most accurate and impressive uses of technology. Cameras and ‘snick-ometers’ give a third umpire a clear sight and sound on which to base – and possibly change – the on-field umpires call. Time is irrelevant; the correct decision is paramount. The crowd may get a little impatient if it takes too long, but it’s also a sport where fans are accustomed to sitting around for periods of inactivity and they all know, going into it, how it works.

Which brings us to football. Given the relative successes above, it makes you wonder why football has struggled to embrace and implement technology anywhere near as effectively. It seems that a high-profile game or tournament cannot pass without problems. The day before I sat down to write this, the Germany v Denmark game at Euro 2025 had been littered with VAR (Video Assistant Referee) controversy. Two first half incidents each took two-and-a-half minutes to come to a conclusion, while a ‘goal’ took three-and-a-half minutes to be struck off; well after a cacophony of boos were coming from disgruntled fans on both sides. It’s quite something; few things unite partisan football fans in that way.

Far from unusual, most games that feature VAR also feature something that gets fans’ backs up. Sometimes it’s the time taken, other times it’s the inability to still come to the right decision and often it’s the lack of consistency in whether it’s used or not. Even goal-line technology and offsides, the footballing equivalent of a tennis line call or a no-ball in cricket, don’t avoid criticism. But why?

The answer has to be because of what it does to the experience.

In all sports – and beyond sport – the technology is more accurate, even in football. That isn’t really up for debate. But it’s important to know when to intervene and how often the fans of that sport will tolerate it.

The major difference between all of the other sports mentioned and football is the flow – and also the celebrations. Let’s begin with the flow.

Tennis is thousands of set-pieces played consecutively. So is cricket. In rugby union, one of the key moves is to kick the ball into the stands. And while both rugby codes are closer to football in terms of game-play, they more closely resemble another sport that relies on technology, American Football. There is a stop-start nature to the play that means that tech intervention is both natural and less noticeable.

Football is - by nature - much more of a free-flowing game. Even when play stops, it restarts very quickly. Fans therefore are at one with this flow. If one team begins to time-waste and slow the game, fans pick up on this immediately; partly because of the perceived injustice to their team, but also because the game itself becomes less enjoyable to watch.

So VAR interference flies in the face of the fan experience. It delays and detracts from the spectacle. It’s why the footballing authorities ought to know better and reduce the amount of intervention rather than remove it completely. Eliminating massive injustices is obviously important, but the rest of the time, the referee do the job just fine.

Then there are the goals. I’m not suggesting that other sports don’t enjoy similar moments, but they are different. Tennis players and fans don’t do a knee slide after every point. Rugby players do celebrate tries but not in the same way as goals in football; for one, there are lots more of them while football might only have one or two in any given game. Cricket, more sedate by nature anyway, also has moments to be celebrated but again there are dozens or more every game.

Football fans live for goals. It’s an almost unique moment – some players have even compared the sensation favourably to sex – where unbridled emotion is released in an instant. This is the same for the player and the fan. When fans in other sports celebrate or acknowledge something on the field, they are doing so with a degree of separation. When a football fan celebrates, it’s as if they have scored the goal, or one of their mates have. It might not happen very often either, so there is a sense of enjoying it while you can.

Replace that with having to wait for someone to check the goal first. This has also turned the players into critics because it reduces their enjoyment. It’s not just at games either. On TV, I detest it when all commentators feel obliged to say. ‘VAR will, of course, have a look at this.’

But why will they? Okay, if it’s a clear howler, but how many goals really fall into that category?

The rugby referee is always looking to award the try unless the TMO can give him any reason why he shouldn’t. In football it often feels like the other way around; like the VAR is trying to find any possible reason to chalk it off. And they wonder why fans don’t like it.

It makes games without VAR so much more enjoyable. Fans at EFL, WSL and National League games don’t have any anxious waits where all the passion and excitement is quelled by the time they see the ‘check over’ words on the big screen. The game is better for it.

But even then, money talks. Look at the influence the VAR had on the EFL Championship Play-Off Final, when a second – and possibly decisive – goal for Sheffield United was disallowed after the video replays showed an offside. With such sums involved in elite level football, the decisions have to be right, so VAR is not going away, despite a lot of people – me included - wishing it would.

Perhaps the biggest problem here is that football hasn’t given the fan experience anywhere near enough consideration when letting technology in.

And even if we can rely on the cameras to get to the right decision, if it also spoils the enjoyment of the game for everyone involved then just being right doesn’t necessarily make it alright.

That’s why other sports are not seeing the same issues. The fans’ overall enjoyment isn’t spoiled, and the players feel able to trust it too.

That’s something football still has to tackle when it comes to technology.