Harry Maguire becomes first leading player to speak out on VAR vote

Manchester United defender Harry Maguire wants to scrap VAR for penalties and red cards while keeping the technology in place for offsides.

It was announced earlier this week that Premier League clubs will vote on whether to get rid of VAR at their annual meeting next month.

This news came after a controversial proposal from Wolves to get rid of VAR and Maguire has revealed he’s not completely against the idea.

The United and England centre-back becomes the first leading player to speak out ahead of the vote, which is scheduled to take place on June 6.

Maguire said (via The Sun): “I think it is going to divide opinion and a lot of people will want to keep it. Equally, the popular thing at the moment is to say get rid of it. It probably does need to be done better.

“The automated offsides are coming in next season and that will improve it.

“It will make things quicker.

“Personally, I would keep VAR but for offsides only. I would scrap it for everything that is opinion based. Offsides are factual and not subjective.

“It is so difficult to lose a game on an offside goal when a player is two or three yards offside.

“Everyone makes mistakes, linesmen make mistakes, so that is why I would keep VAR for that.

“But I would not have it for red cards, or penalties because even now, people disagree if a decision is right or wrong.”

Anyone that attends matches will tell you that VAR is too slow and takes too much away from the atmosphere we enjoy. There is nothing worse than waiting around to see if a goal has been given, only to later discover that VAR got the call wrong.

In turn, we then must stomach days of debate because VAR has been a constant hot topic this season.

Maguire was asked how the dressing room feels about far. He replied: “There is a split.

“Some players want to get rid of it. VAR offsides do kill goal celebrations a bit. In the back of your mind, players think whether or not it is a goal.

“For sure, I don’t want to see penalties decided by VAR – just let the referee make the decision.

“There have been far too many soft penalties this season. Penalties decide football matches and are such an important part of the game.

“Obviously, I am a defender and I would say that. Strikers might say they want soft penalties.

“For me. I don’t want to see soft penalties win football matches. It should be a clear and obvious penalty. It is the same with the red cards – let the referee decide.

“We want our game to be a contact sport. We want the game to be aggressive. We want people to feel they can go in for hard challenges which are fair and not dangerous.”

Maguire is currently out injured but Erik ten Hag is hopeful he will be fit enough to return for the FA Cup final against Man City.

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