Premier League official sensationally breaks ranks and says he ‘hates VAR’

Former Premier League referee – and now fourth official – Bobby Madley has claimed he “hates” VAR and the way it takes the emotion out of the game – insisting players and referees never wanted it introduced

Premier League official Bobby Madley has spoken candidly and admitted he “hates” VAR as it takes the “emotion away” from the game. Referees have had the technology aiding them for six seasons now, but it remains incredibly divisive.

Madley is a referee in the Football League and also serves as a fourth official for matches in the Premier League. Whilst he doesn’t have the chance for VAR to intervene on the matches he referees, he’s seen first hand how it is implemented in top-flight weekends.

The official has opened up as a fan of the game and takes great joy in the emotion that comes lower down the pyramid, where a goal can be celebrated without fear of it being ruled out.

It has become part and parcel of Premier League games to accept that goals, especially those with a contentious decision in the build-up, could be ruled out within minutes as VAR

Madley, who was speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival during an event on technology in sport, said: “As a fan, hate it, hate it. Love the Championship, love League One – I’m still a fan. I love League One because you score a goal, you look at the referee, you look at the assistant, he hasn’t put his flag up, it’s a goal.

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“It [VAR] takes that emotion away from it and football is a game where there could be one moment in the game, one goal, and that’s it. To take that emotion away, to have to wait and wait, and what feels like an eternity, as a fan I’m not a huge fan of that experience.”

Madley claims the introduction of VAR was money-driven with the sport’s bosses desperate to try and eradicate every mistake with players nor referees wanting the technology to come into play. “There’s so much money in football, it’s business-driven,” he added. “So any mistake is perceived to cost people money and I don’t think most football fans were clambering over each other to get video technology.

“The players weren’t, the referees weren’t, but the people who run football, they are multimillion-pound and billion-pound people, and they had issues with referees getting things wrong. I think we’ve got to the stage where people go, ‘Sorry, we’re ruining football with this now’. But we knew the monster that had been created. As referees, we knew what was coming.”

Madley refereed 91 Premier League matches between 2013 and 2018 before he was sacked by Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) after sending a video mocking a disabled person to a friend.

He headed to Norway and took charge of games in the country’s lower league before accepting an opportunity to return to English football in February 2020. He took charge of one Premier League game in 2022/23 and another the year after, but did not referee a top flight match in 2024/25.

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