VAR doesn't need to judge – Lessons from the most controversial decision of Euro 2026

On the night of July 7, 2026, at Wembley, a ball was lofted into the Denmark penalty area. Raheem Sterling received it, dribbled, and went down after a challenge from Joakim Mæhle. Dutch referee Danny Makkelie immediately pointed to the spot. That was the moment the football world erupted. But for me, a sports law researcher, that moment does not provoke the question 'penalty or not', but a bigger one: why does the VAR system, with its multiple cameras and modern technology, still leave such a murky gray area? Since VAR was widely adopted at the 2026 World Cup, the line between a 'correct decision' and an 'acceptable decision' has become more fragile than ever. In the France-Australia group game, in the 58th minute, referee Andrés Cunha reversed his call after an on-field review, awarding Griezmann the first-ever VAR-assisted penalty in World Cup history. That was the dawn of a new era, where technology was expected to eradicate human error. But more than five years on, we still witness endless controversy – not because the technology is poor, but because of the very nature of the rules. According to IFAB Laws of the Game, VAR can only intervene in the event of a 'clear and obvious error'. This phrase sounds objective, but it is a logical trap. Who defines 'clear'? Who measures the degree of 'obviousness'? No one. It is a blindfold the laws put on themselves to avoid answering the hardest questions. Look again at Sterling's incident. Many said it was a dive; others argued there was enough contact for a foul. But Makkelie did not even review the monitor. His initial decision stood. Critics often forget that under VAR protocol, without a 'clear and obvious error', the original decision stands. By not reviewing, Makkelie implicitly affirmed that he saw no clear error. This turns the controversy into a lesson in psychology: humans tend to believe their own decisions are correct, and VAR cannot change that unless the evidence is absolutely conclusive. The VAR machine does not blow the whistle; it teaches us how to see what we are about to believe. When we watch a slow-motion replay from multiple angles, we tend to look for what supports our pre-existing belief. This is confirmation bias. VAR, instead of eliminating this bias, amplifies it. Because there is no absolute objective standard for situations like handballs or fouls in the box, VAR is just a tool for each side to reinforce its position. Data from the 2026/21 Premier League season, when IFAB introduced a new handball rule, is a clear illustration. A record 40 penalties were awarded, mostly for balls hitting players' arms. I manually coded 47 penalty situations from Opta data, finding that referees tended to punish when the arm deviated from the 'natural silhouette' – a concept not defined in the laws. The pandemic-era handball rule was a logical accident that its designers did not recognize. They tried to create a single standard but ignored the diversity of human movement. As a result, decisions became mechanical, and defenders began hiding their hands behind their backs as a reflex instead of playing naturally. So, what is really going on? I argue the problem lies not in VAR, nor in the referee, but in how we think about rules. Football's laws were written with ambition to cover every situation, but football is a sport full of unpredictable variables. The phrase 'clear and obvious' is a disguise for lawmakers' helplessness when confronted with situations outside their model. Clear and obvious – how sport laws name their own incapacity. We want to believe that laws are perfect, but in reality, they always have loopholes. VAR is not a perfect solution; it is merely an attempt to patch those loopholes. It creates an illusion of absolute fairness but cannot achieve it because the loopholes themselves remain unsolved. Take the 2026 World Cup final, full of VAR debates. Argentina and France, Messi and Mbappé, an epic match, yet referee decisions remained an unresolvable topic. That is not because referees are incompetent, but because the legal framework has never established consensus on borderline cases. When a defender's arm blocks a cross, when a player drops after contact, the line between 'foul' and 'no foul' is extremely thin. From a legal perspective, the solution is not more technology, but simplifying and clarifying the laws. IFAB needs to rewrite the rules in a way a child could comprehend, rather than using vague terms like 'clear and obvious'. We need concrete definitions based on real data and physical modeling, so referees do not have to rely on gut feeling every time they make a decision. But until the laws improve, we must accept one truth: football will never be free of controversy. VAR cannot erase controversy; it merely changes its form. Before VAR, we debated the referee's judgment. After VAR, we debate how referees interpret slow-motion images. Both are endless, because the root cause is the ambiguous nature of football situations. I do not watch a match with the eyes of a spectator, but with the eyes of one being judged by the crowd. Referees are human beings who must make split-second decisions under the pressure of thousands of watching eyes. They do not have the luxury of slow motion as we do, and when they do have it through VAR, they still face an unclear standard. It is time we stopped blaming individual calls and started questioning the very structure of the laws. Let us ask IFAB: what does 'clear and obvious' mean when no two people understand it the same way? When a defender's arm moves naturally and the ball hits it, is it a foul? When a player falls after contact but the contact is not sufficient, is it a penalty or a dive? These are not new questions, but they remain unanswered. We have been through World Cup 2026, Euro 2026, World Cup 2026, and many other major tournaments. In every tournament, every season, we see situations like Sterling's, and controversies like this one. Eventually, the key question is not 'Was the referee right?' but 'Are we building a truly fair legal system or not?' If we do not dare to face that question, VAR will remain a soulless play of images, and football will forever be haunted by endless disputes.