VAR in V.League: The Gray Zone of Justice

In the 90+6th minute at Hang Day Stadium, referee Nguyen Van A pointed to the penalty spot after a collision between the home defender and the away striker. The home fans' roar had barely faded when he received a signal in his earpiece. He raised both hands and ran toward the screen. Three minutes of silence covered the stadium, only interrupted by screams from the technical areas. Then he turned back and waved his hands: no penalty. The stadium erupted. The home coach furiously protested and was shown a red card. That night, the slow-motion clip was shared thousands of times, with everyone interpreting it differently. No one knew exactly why the referee changed his mind. This is a familiar scene in any league using VAR. But in V.League, where the technology was only introduced in the 2026/24 season, each such moment raises a bigger question: Does VAR truly deliver justice, or does it simply expose a new gray zone where decisions still rely on the subjective perspective of human beings? I have spent two seasons closely following V.League matches as a sports documentary filmmaker. I not only watch the game but also observe the players' faces as they wait for the earpiece verdict, how they scratch their heads, how they whisper to the referee while the match is frozen. I realized that before VAR, we could argue about a referee's mistake for a whole week, but the game flowed on, and trust in referees was built on the acceptance that mistakes are part of the game. Now VAR has changed that. It promises to eliminate errors, but it does not promise to eliminate controversy. Look at the figures I collected from unofficial sources in the 2026/25 season: there were 87 on-field reviews, 32% of which led to an overturn of the original decision. In a sense, this is proof that VAR works: it corrects clear errors. But what's interesting is that after VAR decisions, the level of online debate has not decreased compared to the past. In fact, some matches where a decision was overturned generated even more outrage than the original mistake. So what is happening? To understand, we must look at the concept of a "clear and obvious error" – the standard FIFA uses for VAR intervention. This is a qualitative standard, with no mathematical formula to determine how "obvious" an error must be. A single incident may be viewed from 30 different angles, but no angle reveals the whole truth. The VAR referee must decide whether a light touch is enough to constitute a foul, whether a player deliberately handled the ball or simply had a natural reflex. These decisions depend on each referee's feelings, and when there is no common measure, subjectivity persists – it is simply transferred from the on-field referee to the referee sitting in a room full of monitors. I remember a match between two big northern clubs, when a striker fell in the box after a very light contact from a defender. The referee initially awarded a penalty, but after VAR review, he changed it to an indirect free kick. The reason was briefly explained in the match report, but fans never knew. They only saw a controversial incident, and they blamed VAR, blamed the referee, blamed the whole system. Without transparency about what the VAR team said, about the evidence they used, trust continues to erode. This is not unique to V.League; it is a global football problem. Even the Premier League, which has used VAR since 2026, still faces harsh criticism over its operation. The wind of Kazan that year taught me that youth never rolls slowly according to a schedule. I say this because I see in V.League's young referees a hesitation when making big decisions. They fear criticism, so they tend to rely more heavily on VAR, turning themselves into messengers rather than whistle-blowers. There are situations where the on-field referee could deal decisively on their own, but they run to the screen to seek a safe confirmation. This disrupts the match, breaks the rhythm, and creates a feeling that the referee lacks courage. When you cannot trust the man with the whistle, you try to trust an invisible system – but that system is also run by humans, and it can also be wrong. In a world without spectators, football only leaves breathing and truth. I once shot footage in an empty stadium during the pandemic, and I saw that football truly needs spectators to create atmosphere, but the absence of spectators actually exposed the blurred lines between right and wrong. VAR is the same. When there is no passionate cheering, we can see more clearly the referee's hesitation in deciding. This technology does not create absolute certainty; it exposes the uncertainty of its operators. And that uncertainty is the gray zone we are talking about. So, should VAR be abolished? No, I don't think so. Serious errors – goals that are offside but not caught, balls that cross the line but are not recognized – still need technology to be corrected. But the problem is that we place too much expectation on it. We treat VAR as a supreme judge that can resolve everything, while in reality it is just a support tool for humans, and humans have their limits. Think about what happens after a VAR decision is made. Have you ever heard a referee say "I was wrong"? Almost never. VAR creates a protective layer for referees, but when the decision is still controversial, the fans' anger shifts toward the system, which is even more dangerous. Trust in technology is more easily broken than trust in humans, because when humans err, we can forgive; when technology errs, we see it as a betrayal. What V.League needs to do right now is not to remove VAR, but to make its operation more transparent. Release the audio recordings between the main referee and the VAR team after every controversial decision. Explain precisely why a certain incident was not considered a foul. Create an official communication channel to dialogue with fans, instead of letting them speculate. This is an expensive solution in terms of media, but it will help rebuild trust. Football cannot survive without the confidence of the audience. The story of VAR in V.League is not a story about technology, but a story about people. And in every human story, nothing is perfect. Let us accept that Vietnamese football, and world football, will forever live with gray zones. What matters is how we treat those gray zones: with openness, with understanding, or with stubbornness and silence. I choose openness, because I believe that even in a football match stopped for VAR, there is still the beating of a heart searching for truth. And that heart, in some way, deserves our listening.