Tony Pulis’ column: “Howard Webb, Where Are You?” – How can we stop VAR technology that is destroying football

Speaking of Stockley Park, I can honestly say that this place has had the biggest impact on professional football in my life – and not in a positive way, I might add.

Every week, I watch the matches with my mouth open, wondering how the so-called refereeing experts can get so many decisions wrong.

The nature of football means that personal decision-making will always be contested – handballs, penalty kicks, what is a caution or not. It is impossible to agree on everything, and we have to understand that.

But red cards should be given a stricter framework for referees to work with, which would lead to more consistency in decisions.

The laws surrounding everything I mentioned above in this column are very vague at the moment, and I think we have to remember what VAR was originally used for.

It was intended to protect and correct major or blatant wrong decisions – things like Thierry Henry’s handball against the Republic of Ireland, Diego Maradona’s handball against England and Frank Lampard’s goal that crossed the goal line but was not given against Germany, in the 2010 World Cup.

Incidents like this are examples of the kind of major bad decisions we can all agree on.

Unfortunately, VAR has become a beast, driving fans away from the game, and things are getting worse – it seems to be getting more and more involved now, in every match I watch, and it still doesn’t go right.

What upsets a lot of people in the game is that they are not asked why they think the problem with VAR is.

There are two other people-management bodies in English football – the League Managers’ Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association – with members who have already played or are currently playing and manage the game.

Even if the referees didn’t want either of them involved in running VAR, were they asked how VAR could be improved – because they are the people who influence it, not just the fans.

If not, why not?