{"id":5918,"date":"2026-06-27T15:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=5918"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:49:15","slug":"world-cup-2026-has-var-become-a-lottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=5918","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Has VAR become a lottery?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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Other competitions have a lower bar for VAR, and the video officials get involved more often.<\/p>\n

That creates a cloak of consistency, because people expect interventions, but it does not necessarily mean VAR is being used as originally intended, for the real howlers.<\/p>\n

Take the Champions League as a comparison. At 0.47 interventions a game and 0.36 monitor visits a match the VAR is far more likely to get involved.<\/p>\n

Handball is a prime example, with Uefa applying a strict interpretation – less room for subjectivity, fewer reasons for the VAR to leave it alone. If the ball hits the arm a defender is in trouble.<\/p>\n

So, what has happened this week to cause such a fuss?<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Ghana coach Carlo Queiroz said that “VAR went for a coffee”<\/a> after his side were not given a penalty against England for Ezri Konsa’s challenge on Prince Kwabena Adu.<\/p>\n

It was a clumsy tackle and a real surprise that there was no intervention in a game which finished 0-0<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then on Wednesday, Brazil had a goal ruled out in their 3-0 win<\/a> against Scotland for a foul by Vinicius Jr on Jack Hendry. <\/p>\n

This time the high bar had been lowered. It seemed Hendry had kicked the Real Madrid forward, rather than there being a clear and obvious foul.<\/p>\n

“I think Scotland are a little fortunate to be honest,” former World Cup assistant referee Darren Cann said on MOTD.<\/p>\n

“There is a little contact before the ball is played but I don’t really feel that it’s a foul.”<\/p>\n

Onto Thursday and Germany’s 2-1 loss<\/a> to Ecuador.<\/p>\n

Leroy Sane’s early goal for Germany was allowed to stand despite Alexandar Pavlovic’s high boot clearly catching the head of Pedro Vite.<\/p>\n

It felt an obvious VAR intervention, but the on-field decision of referee Tori Penso was allowed to stand.<\/p>\n

“Every single player watching this World Cup right now would have seen this incident and said immediately, that’s endangering an opponent, that’s a high boot, that’s a foul,” Joe Hart said on MOTD.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s the wrong decision.”<\/p>\n

Ellen White added: “I’m shocked that it wasn’t reviewed and it wasn’t disallowed.”<\/p>\n

Then just after half-time, Penso pointed to the spot for a penalty after Kai Havertz went down under a challenge from Joel Ordonez.<\/p>\n

Yet this time the VAR, Joe Dickerson, stepped in to tell the referee to cancel the penalty for a foul on the halfway line by Leroy Sane on Vite.<\/p>\n

In isolation it could be seen as a fair intervention, even though Vite did appear to go down in instalments. <\/p>\n

But in comparison with the high bar applied to potential Pavlovic’s high boot it was not.<\/p>\n

Maybe the VAR felt they were making up for the previous indiscretion. <\/p>\n

But it did seem inconceivable that the VAR could give one foul and not the other. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Other competitions have a lower bar for VAR, and the video officials get involved more often. That creates a cloak…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}