The 2023/24 campaign was arguably the most controversial season from a VAR perspective since its introduction, particularly in the Premier League.
It has led to widespread debate regarding the future of the technology among supporters, and the results of a survey carried out by IPSOS on the topic have now been revealed.
48% of football fans in favour of keeping VAR
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Who are IPSOS?
At Ipsos, we champion the unique blend of Human Intelligence (HI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to propel innovation and deliver impactful, human-centric insights for our clients.
— Ipsos (@Ipsos) June 4, 2024
In essence, IPSOS are a multinational market research company that use a variety of methods to obtain the opinions of consumers in various industries.
They have conducted multiple surveys within football and are extremely helpful in gauging the consensus regarding a specific issue among supporters.
VAR support the highest among young fans
While the results of the survey were largely damning for VAR, it was interesting to learn that young fans, defined as those aged between 16-34, demonstrated the most support for the technology among all age groups surveyed.
In fact, a respectable 50% of supporters in this category were in favour of keeping VAR as it is in its current state – which compared to the rest of fans, is an incredibly high figure. With a large portion of people in that age range growing up surrounded by ever-evolving technology, perhaps they are more open-minded on the topic and see its potential more clearly.
Changes to VAR are needed
🚨 BREAKING: The Premier League has released a statement addressing the Nottingham Forest VAR controversy, describing how they were “extremely disappointed to read the comments made by Nottingham Forest on social media yesterday” pic.twitter.com/vGj7ZrK7g2
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) April 22, 2024
It is also worth noting that while almost half of all fans questioned would scrap the video assistant referee technology in its current form, many supporters would change their minds if changes were made.
The IPSOS survey found that 48% would be in favour of keeping VAR if this were to be the case, which is enough to suggest that the crisis may not be as bad as it may seem.
With semi-automated offside decisions set to be introduced into the Premier League for the 2024/25 campaign – a change expected to reduce these decisions by an astonishing 31 seconds – public opinion may be far more positive this time next year.