VAR in V.League: The technology is right, the decisions are still out of step

This article focuses on the inconsistency of VAR intervention thresholds in the V.League. Drawing on my seven years of covering disciplinary issues in Spain, I recorded 64 VAR review situations across seven V.League rounds. Among them, 22 led to an overturned on-field decision, a rate of about 34 percent. The key observation is that VAR reviews were more frequent in matches with live television coverage, which suggests the process is not fully uniform across all fixtures. The article argues that the real problem is not the technology but the regulatory workflow: how camera angles are selected, how long referees take before stopping play, and who is responsible for deciding when a clear and obvious error has occurred. A second key issue is the delay between the VAR booth and the on-field referee. In European leagues, communication protocols are more standardized. In the V.League, there were 11 cases where the referee checked the monitor only after play had continued for more than 20 seconds. That delay changes the psychological state of players and disrupts the rhythm of the match. The article also argues that referees should be allowed to request camera angles themselves rather than passively accepting images selected by the VAR team. Disciplinary consistency matters more than individual decisions. Fans should ask about the intervention threshold, the time taken, and the camera angles shown, rather than simply asking whether a call was right or wrong. The article concludes by suggesting that V.League should publish VAR logs and create a more transparent system so that refereeing decisions become a matter of process and evidence rather than endless debate.