Is it time for football managers to challenge VAR decisions?

The Manchester derby blunder

Manchester City beat Manchester United 1-0 on Sunday thanks to an Erling Haaland goal. However, the referees' body, Pro Ref, admitted just three hours after the match that the goal was awarded in error. City midfielder Enzo Fernández was offside, but the VAR team failed to spot it.

The audio of VAR Matt Donohue and assistant VAR Blake Antrobus was released on Tuesday. The clip lasted two minutes and 29 seconds. During this time, they did not check if Fernández was blocking United defender Lisandro Martínez.

This defeat hurts United manager Michael Carrick. He is trying to stop the club's worst start to a Premier League season in 34 years. If Carrick could have challenged the decision, the mistake could have been fixed in seconds.

Learning from other sports

Other sports use a challenge system to fix bad calls. In the NFL, coaches throw a red flag to challenge plays. Cricket captains have 15 seconds to dispute a decision, and tennis has a similar setup.

There are penalties for wrong challenges, like losing a timeout in the NFL. Coaches there get at least two challenges per game. They get a third if one of their first two is successful.

VAR was introduced at the 2018 World Cup to stop obvious mistakes. But we have seen many errors since the Premier League started using it in the 2019-20 season. Liverpool had a Luis Díaz goal wrongly disallowed against Tottenham in October 2023. Arsenal also suffered when Brentford's Ivan Toney scored an offside equalizer after VAR Lee Mason failed to check the guidelines.

Some people, like former United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, want VAR scrapped. However, VAR gets most big decisions right. Adding a challenge system would help fix the clear mistakes.