Dear VAR,
We need to talk.
It's been several years now since you arrived in the Premier League, and I think we can both agree it hasn't gone well. You came in promising "clear and obvious errors" would be corrected. What you actually delivered was five minutes of silence while a man in Stockley Park draws lines on a television screen to determine whether a player's armpit was offside.
An armpit, VAR. You're disallowing goals because of an armpit. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? I managed in the lower leagues for twenty years and not once did a linesman say to me, "Sorry Gary, the goal doesn't count because the armpit was in an offside position." Because in sane football, armpits don't score goals.
But here we are. In your world. Where armpits are offside, celebrations are delayed by three minutes, and grown men are told to stand in a wall while the referee draws a line of spray foam that disappears in thirty seconds and achieves precisely nothing.
Do you know what the worst thing is? It's not the wrong decisions. You still get those wrong plenty. It's the waiting. The standing around. The silence in the stadium while 60,000 people stare at a screen waiting for a man they can't see to make a decision he's not confident about using technology that was supposed to be infallible.
Football is supposed to be emotional. Spontaneous. You score, you celebrate, you hug a stranger. That's the deal. That's the contract between the game and the fan. You've broken that contract, VAR. You've turned the most exciting moment in sport into a "pending review."
I scored a goal once. Well, I assisted one. In a charity match in 2003. And when it went in, nobody checked a screen. Nobody drew a line. We just celebrated. Pure, uncomplicated, joyful celebration. I want that back.
So here's my proposal: go away. Not forever. Just for a bit. Give us a season without you. Let the referees referee. Let the mistakes happen. Let the armpits roam free in whatever position they choose. And if, after a season, we genuinely miss you? We'll talk.
But we won't miss you.
Yours in increasing frustration,
Gaffer Gary
Retired manager. Full-time complainer.