Coaches' Challenges Could Be Coming To The Premier League

FIFA’s rolling out a new way for coaches to challenge calls—meet FVS, or Football Video Support. Unlike the classic Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system (that ucking sucks), which relies on official reviews with tons of cameras, FVS allows coaches themselves to trigger reviews. FIFA's already tested it out in the U20 and U17 Women’s World Cups this year and wants to expand it further, pending approval from the International Football Association Board (IFAB).

So, how does it work? In FVS, coaches get two chances per game to challenge decisions they think went sideways. When they call for a challenge, the ref heads over to a screen at the sideline to check the replay—no panel of video referees sorting through footage, just a single replay operator queuing it up for the ref to judge on their own (as it should be). If the coach’s challenge is wrong, they lose one of their review requests, keeping things from getting too chaotic with back-to-back reviews.

FIFA’s reasoning here is simple: while big leagues like the Premier League have the budget for VAR, many leagues worldwide are broke and can’t afford that setup. FVS would be a cheaper alternative to help referees make the right calls in these games without requiring top-level production.

However, this does nothing for the games people actually care about. No disrespect to the leagues with no money, but no one’s watching them. Nobody’s going to lose sleep over a missed call in the lower levels of the English football pyramid. We need coaches’ challenges in the games we actually care about, like the Premier League. Time and time again, Arsenal and other clubs in the Premier League get fucked over by inconsistent refereeing. One of the refs even got caught on video calling Jürgen Klopp a “cunt!” Sure, implementing coaches' challenges might add more stoppage time, but I'd rather have more stoppage time than missed or incorrect calls. 

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