Tony Pulis column: ‘VAR must clamp down on its neck’ – How I’ll change football for the fans

Referees are controlled and directed by governing bodies, so they should be held accountable for many of the concerns mentioned above, but we need to move away from the situation we are in, where these concerns have become too widespread.

We need to find a way to make referees invisible again because, at the moment, we have a system that has turned refereeing into nothing less than empire building, which means you often hear more people talking about VAR and refereeing decisions than you do about goals scored or conceded.

In fact, I sometimes feel sorry for the referees, because a lot of this has nothing to do with them. The amendments to the laws in recent seasons have made decisions much more complicated than they should be.

For example, when Manchester City beat Liverpool on Sunday, the big talking point afterwards was Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed goal.

In the old fashioned way offside was decided, Andy Robertson was definitely offside as he was outside the City backline. There is no doubt about that.

But the way the law reads now, with reference to impacting play, line of sight or tackling the goalkeeper, you can be deeper than the last defender and control the flank.

Everything is very subjective to each individual incident, which means that the interpretation of the ruling takes center stage.

The same thing happened with the handball law. I don’t think anyone really knows what handball is anymore – there are so many variations in every decision, it makes it almost impossible for on-field referees or VAR to get it right.

Overcomplicating things has taken away the fun from football, which I find ridiculous.

Let’s keep things simple again, so we can get our game back and start talking about goals again, not refereeing decisions.

Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.