Video review improves officiating accuracy but can reduce spectator trust after decisive overturns

What's this about?

People disagree about whether video checks make referee calls better but make fans trust games less. The answer may change with the type of call and the sport.

What supporters say

• Video checks can reduce home-team bias and make calls more even for both teams.
• A big call changed late can make fans feel the game was not fair or honest.
• Video checks can fix important mistakes that referees miss during play.
• Long checks and added time can hurt the fun and smooth flow of watching.

What critics say

• Fairer calls may make fans trust referees more over time.
• Most research looks at football, so we are not sure this claim fits other sports.

How to read this

Point counts do not show who is right; judge how strong the proof is for each point.

The bottom line

Video checks seem to improve some parts of refereeing, especially by reducing home-team bias. Their effect on fan trust remains unclear, but late changes and long delays can make fans less happy.

Video review can make professional officiating more accurate and impartial, but it may also weaken spectators’ confidence when a major decision is overturned. The evidence is strongest for improvements in some parts of officiating, while the effect on trust remains more uncertain.

The case for

Video review corrects important mistakes. FIFA reported that match-changing decisions at the 2018 World Cup were judged accurate 99.3% of the time with VAR, compared with 95% without it (see Figure 1). That figure comes from the tournament’s organizer and uses its own definition of accuracy, so it should not be treated as the final word. Still, independent research across competitive football provides additional support that review can improve decision-making in some circumstances 1.

The strongest evidence concerns reduced home-team bias. Research covering 41 professional leagues found that VAR can reduce the tendency for referees to favor the home side. Studies in Turkey, Italy and Germany point in a similar direction. That does not mean every decision becomes correct, but it suggests that review can make some important calls more even-handed 2 (see Figure 2).

The trust problem is less about whether a corrected decision is technically right than about how the correction is experienced. Surveys and interviews have linked video review with concerns about satisfaction, enjoyment, fairness and transparency. A late reversal can change both the result and the story spectators thought they had watched. Because the review process may seem opaque or negotiated between officials, an accurate decision may still feel less legitimate 4.

Reviews can also interrupt the flow of a match. Studies of football leagues have found longer games and more added time after VAR was introduced, while FIFA’s refereeing leadership has acknowledged that some decisions take too long. These delays directly threaten enjoyment and the rhythm of watching, even though they do not by themselves prove that spectators lose trust 5.

The concern is especially credible for ambiguous situations, such as offside calls, judgments about intent and other decisions that depend on choosing video frames or interpreting what happened. Clear errors are easier to accept when corrected. Borderline calls can remain open to disagreement, meaning that review does not remove controversy in every case 3.

The case against

Fairness can build trust rather than weaken it. Spectators may be unhappy with a particular overturn while still believing that the competition is being run more fairly overall. Evidence on reduced home bias, together with research on fan reactions, supports the possibility that people distinguish frustration with a decision from confidence in the system 6.

But the available studies do not directly show that fairness gains outweigh the loss of enjoyment or the irritation caused by a decisive reversal. In particular, there is no strong experiment comparing trust before and after a game-ending overturn while also measuring whether the overturned call became more accurate.

The claim also reaches beyond what the evidence can firmly support. Most research concerns association football and football’s VAR rules. Systems in basketball, baseball, tennis and other sports use different review limits, timing and levels of automation. As a result, the evidence supports a qualified conclusion about football more strongly than a general conclusion about professional sport as a whole 7.

The bottom line

The evidence favours video review as an improvement in some dimensions of officiating, especially decision consistency and the reduction of home-team bias. Confidence in that conclusion is high, though accuracy studies vary and do not show that all mistakes disappear.

The claim that decisive overturns reduce spectator trust is plausible but less firmly established. Evidence on satisfaction, fairness, enjoyment and legitimacy points to a conditional effect, particularly when reviews are delayed, unclear or highly consequential. But strong, direct studies of trust before and after match-ending reversals are lacking. Overall, the evidence supports the claim more strongly on improved accuracy than on a predictable loss of trust.