VAR in V.League 1: When Technology Arrives Before Consistency

The 2026 season was the first time VAR appeared in V.League 1. I remember sitting in front of the screen, pen in hand, waiting for a historic moment. That moment arrived, but not in the way anyone expected: an offside situation, a few minutes of waiting, and a conclusion that neither the stands nor the television audience could understand.

Three seasons later, I still keep the habit of rewatching the footage every Monday night. Rewatching footage is not a lack of trust; it is a way of respecting the truth. And what I found after hundreds of hours of footage was not in the technology. It was in the gap between a system that is installed and a system that is operated.

Context: VAR did not arrive at every stadium at once

In Vietnam, VAR has never been a question of whether it exists. It is a question of where and when. The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) and the Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company (VPF) have worked with FIFA for years, training VAR teams, and installing systems at several qualified stadiums. That is a process heading in the right direction.

But a league with VAR in a few matches is not the same as a league with VAR. The difference lies in consistency — something no camera can buy.

I once sat in the analysis room of a match without VAR, then watched a match with VAR the following week involving the same kind of situation. Different outcomes. Different handling. And different explanations for the audience. For a player, that creates a genuine injustice: the same act, two standards.

What the law says

Under the IFAB Laws of the Game, VAR may intervene in only four categories of situations: goals, penalty kicks, direct red cards, and mistaken identity of players. The central principle is the clear and obvious error. VAR was not created to catch small mistakes. It was created to correct mistakes everyone can see.

What is worth noting is that Vietnamese referees themselves understand this law very well. I have spoken with several people in the profession. They know the four categories by heart. The problem is not knowledge. The problem lies elsewhere: a decision that is correct under the law can still be perceived as wrong if the audience is not shown what the referee sees.

Alongside the main referee are the assistant VAR (AVAR) and the technical team. They do not replace the referee in making the decision. They only recommend that the referee review it. That line is very thin, and in a league still learning to operate VAR, it is easily blurred. An inexperienced VAR team can intervene too much. An overly cautious VAR team can miss things. Both create problems, just two different kinds.

The counterintuitive angle

People often think VAR resolves controversy. In reality, in V.League, there was a period when VAR created more controversy. The reason is simple: when a system is used in only a portion of matches, it turns the rest into a grey zone. A penalty at a stadium with VAR and a similar penalty at a stadium without VAR become two different events in the same league.

I once thought technology was the answer. After three seasons, I believe the opposite. Technology only amplifies the quality of the system behind it. If the system is inconsistent, VAR will amplify that inconsistency many times over, because it shows the audience a decision that has been reviewed yet still nobody understands.

There is a detail rarely mentioned. In the offside law, the arms and hands are not counted in determining an offside position. It took me three months to understand that the arm does not belong to the offside law. Those three months taught me one thing: most controversies do not come from the law, but from the fact that the audience has never been allowed to read the law the way a referee does.

The camera problem

At many V.League stadiums, the number of cameras is still limited. An offside situation requires a camera angle parallel to the defensive line. A handball situation requires an angle close enough to see the point of contact. When angles are lacking, the VAR team must reach a conclusion from incomplete evidence. And under the IFAB principle, when evidence is insufficient, the on-field decision must stand.

This is the point few understand. Letting a decision stand does not mean VAR confirmed the referee was right. It only means VAR did not have enough evidence to overturn it. These two statements are completely different, yet on television they are often merged into one.

A culture of explanation

European football is ahead on one point: they explain. After the match, a referee can appear on television to state clearly why a decision was made. In Vietnam, that gap remains. The audience sees the outcome but not the reason. Fans remember the goals; I remember the clauses. But the majority of fans have no obligation to remember clauses. That obligation belongs to those who hold the whistle.

A match can be paused, but the responsibility of the person holding the whistle cannot.

Why this matters for the whole game

VAR is only the surface. Beneath it is a larger ecosystem: referee training, stadium infrastructure, and the way the media reports on decisions. If we invest only in VAR and not in those three, we will have an expensive system that still lacks trust.

The same is true of the transfer market. A contract can be signed lawfully, but if fans do not understand the mechanism behind it, trust erodes. I once read a contract in which the release clause specified a precise date. Just one line of text. But it decided an entire deal. The law is not in what is said loudly, but in what is written down.

The blind spot of judging only by results

There is a temptation that both fans and the media easily fall into: judging referees by the result of the match. If your team wins, the referee is fine. If your team loses, the referee has a problem. This way of judging does not measure referee quality. It only measures the audience's level of satisfaction.

A good refereeing system is not one that makes decisions the majority likes. It is one that makes the same decision for the same situation, regardless of the stadium, the team, or the minute.

Looking ahead

I do not think VAR in V.League is a failure. It is a correct step, taken with limited resources. But the next step is not buying more cameras. It is making everyone understand what is happening.

If, next season, a VAR decision is explained publicly on the big screen immediately after it is made — briefly, lawfully, in language the audience understands — that will be greater progress than any software upgrade. Technology can arrive in one season. Trust needs many more seasons than that.

Before pointing a finger at anyone, I ask myself whether I have read the whole contract. With VAR, the question is the same: before pointing a finger at the referee, have we read the whole law?