VAR DIDN’T GET IT WRONG. THE OFFICIALS DID.

There is something deeply wrong with football when the people responsible for getting a decision right, even with the help of multi-million-pound technology, can admit after the final whistle that they got it wrong.

Not the first time. Not the second. Not the third—and definitely not going to be the last.

Michael Carrick might lose his job down the line, with that particular mistake playing a key role. Hearts were broken. Kids went back home with tears and sadness in their hearts. VAR could have prevented all that, but NO. All it offered was an APOLOGY!!

The league table does not carry an asterisk. Manchester United do not get their points back. And the officials will, at some point, return to their jobs like nothing happened.

But Manchester United got an apology.

Yes,An apology !

That is the VAR-Way ……. APOLOGY

Get the decision wrong. Change the outcome of the result. Wait for the outrage. Then apologise.

Everybody goes home.

Except the team that has just been damaged.

Professional Game Match Officials Limited, PGMOL, has admitted that VAR made an “error in judgement” over Erling Haaland’s winning goal in Manchester City’s 1-0 victory over United. The organisation said VAR should have advised Michael Oliver to conduct an on-field review because of Enzo Fernández’s involvement while in an offside position.

Fine. At least they apologised.

Some will say, “But is that enough?”

Absolutely not.

Nobody is demanding perfection from referees. NO.

Football is played at extraordinary speed. Referees are human. They will miss things. They will make mistakes.

That was the entire argument for VAR in the first place.

“We have technology now.”

Cameras. Replays. Multiple angles. Slow motion. Offside lines. Officials sitting in a room with monitors.

The technology was supposed to reduce the number of catastrophic mistakes, and that is where the anger of football fans begins.

Instead, we have somehow created a system where a mistake that could be avoided can be replayed 15 times and still be made.

INCOMPETENCE!!

That is the maddening part.

If VAR has all these tools available and still fails to apply the relevant part of the law, what exactly are we improving?

The Fans Saw It. The Technology Saw It. So How Did VAR Officials Miss It?

You could understand a referee missing an incident in real time.

You could understand someone standing 30 yards away not seeing a player clearly.

But they sat down in a room in front of multiple screens showing the action.

The incident can be replayed. The angle can be changed. The footage can be slowed down.

And yet the officials end up making the wrong decision.

This is what makes the whole thing so difficult to swallow.

That is not a technology problem.

That is an implementation problem.

Because somewhere along the line, the simple objective of helping the referee get the big decisions right was handed to the incompetent ones—and then buried beneath protocols, interpretations, lengthy checks and officials trying to find technical reasons to defend decisions they should be getting right.

Does the apology put a point or three back on United’s total?

No.

Does it give United the opportunity to play the remaining 30 minutes again?

No.

The apology acknowledges the incompetence.

It does not repair it.

And because of that, lives have been ruined, dreams have been shattered, jobs have been lost and, most importantly, hearts have been broken.

This is bigger than Manchester United.

Yesterday, it was United.

Tomorrow, it could be Arsenal.

Liverpool.

Chelsea.

Newcastle.

Everton.

It could be a newly promoted club fighting relegation.

A team fighting for Europe.

A manager fighting for his job.

A club fighting for the title.

A supporter who has saved money for months to watch his team play.

Coaches and players did not go through the hard work on the training pitch during the week to be undone by the incompetence of people who shouldn’t be near a football game calling themselves officials.

Football is not played in isolated 90-minute bubbles.

Every decision has consequences.

A single dropped point can determine whether a club goes into administration or not.

A goal can become the difference between survival and relegation.

A defeat can change a manager’s future.

A missed decision can affect transfers, finances, careers and the emotional lives of millions of supporters.

That sounds dramatic?

Yes.

And that is why the VAR officials are there: to stop an already dramatic sport from becoming chaotic.

That is precisely why officiating matters so much.

These aren’t meaningless numbers on a spreadsheet.

There are people attached to them.

Dreams attached to them.

Livelihoods attached to them.

So When Does VAR Actually Get It Right?

This is the question football keeps asking.

And increasingly, the answer seems to be:

Not consistently enough.

VAR was supposed to bring clarity.

Instead, we have endless controversy over what VAR is actually looking for.

Fans are left staring at their televisions, thinking they have just watched something obvious, only to hear an explanation that somehow makes the incident even more confusing.

And that is toxic for the game.

Because football’s greatest strength has always been its simplicity.

Ball crosses the line?

Goal.

Player is offside and interferes with play?

Offside.

Foul in the box?

Penalty.

VAR should clarify those moments—not turn them into courtroom hearings.

And What About Accountability?

This is where the authorities need to stop hiding behind polite language, closed-door reviews and meaningless apologies.

They have had years to fix the issue of their fellow officials ALWAYS making the Bad decisions. They have had the technology, the time, the footage and the evidence. Yet the same failures continue, and clubs continue to suffer and the same officials return to work after a brief period of silence.

That is not accountability.

That is institutional protection.

If VAR officials make a significant mistake, there should be transparent consequences.

Not humiliation.

Accountability.

The VAR official involved in Sunday’s derby, Matt Donohue, has been stood down from Premier League duty for the following weekend, along with assistant VAR Blake Antrobus.

That is not enough.

A one-week absence is not justice. It is not a meaningful sanction. It is not an explanation to the club that lost points, the manager whose future may be affected or the supporters who paid to watch the match and millions around the world who invested their EMOTIONS!

It is a temporary inconvenience imposed on officials who made a decision with permanent consequences for everyone else.

But supporters deserve more than knowing that someone is temporarily unavailable for selection.

They deserve to know what went wrong, why it went wrong and what is being changed to prevent it from happening again.

Because if the answer is simply:

“Human error.”

Then we are back where we started.

The whole point of VAR was to reduce the consequences of human error.

VAR Was Supposed To Save Football From Its Worst Mistakes. It Is Gradually Becoming One.

Technology was introduced to make the game fairer.

It was supposed to remove doubt.

It was supposed to provide clarity.

Instead, it has become another source of chaos.

But there is a difference between accepting human imperfection and accepting avoidable incompetence.

Because now, the whistle has gone.

The goal stands.

The three points belong to City.

Manchester United have every right to be angry.

But fans also have the right to ask:

What good is an apology after the damage has already been done?

Is it just going to be another club waiting for its own VAR nightmare?

That is the real problem.

Until VAR becomes better at preventing mistakes rather than simply explaining them afterwards, football will continue to pay the price.

Football cannot keep accepting the same cycle:

Controversy. Outrage. Explanation. Apology. Investigation. Silence. Repeat.

Because when a decision changes a result, “sorry” is not the final whistle.

It is the beginning of the conversation.

And after what happened at Old Trafford, questions need to be asked.

Because football and its supporters have had enough.