The use of VAR in the Premier League continues to divide opinions among fans, coaches, players, and pundits, with Andy Burnham, the UK Prime Minister, the latest to discuss the technology

The UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has claimed that VAR has ruined spontaneity in the Premier League and said he would ban its use in the division.

Burnham, an avid Everton fan, previously announced his dislike of the system's implementation in the top flight, which has been in operation since 2019.

The use of the technology has divided opinion in the seven years since, with complaints largely surrounding the time the VAR can take to make decisions, some of the processes that lead to on-field calls, and the way it can remove key moments from games in an instant.

That is often met with a counterargument, with some fans, coaches, players, and pundits claiming that the technology often reaches the right decisions during games, far more often than it gets them wrong.

While debate continues to rage over its use in the Premier League, there seems to be little sign that it will be going away anytime soon.

However, the UK Prime Minister suggested it should be removed when he appeared on LadBible's Agree to Disagree series, in which he discussed whether he agreed with a stated opinion.

When it was put to him that VAR has "ruined" soccer, he placed himself in the "strongly agree" category, stating his reasons clearly afterward, making an interesting claim about his side's rivals in the process.

"I often believed that other clubs, bigger clubs, Liverpool, Man United, got decisions, whereas Everton, my club, didn't," Burnham claimed when discussing the VAR technology.

"So refs were a bit more - they tended to give decisions that way, and I thought: 'Oh well, VAR will level things up', but it really hasn't leveled things up in my view.

"But also in the ground, because before I became Prime Minister, I had a season ticket and I didn't miss a game last year. I'm [an] Everton season ticket holder. What it does is it kills spontaneity.

"So football, going to the match, is about those moments when the goal goes in and [everyone celebrates]. That's what it's about. But then you do that, and it's VAR checking the goal. And the thing was, you'd accept it if it got the decisions right, but it doesn't get the decisions right."

When it was suggested that Burnham could use his powers as Prime Minister to ban VAR, he didn't seem averse to the idea and joked, "You are putting an idea in my head."

While that may well be outside his jurisdiction as the Prime Minister, it certainly shows where his thoughts are on VAR, even if not everyone will agree with his reasoning.

For Liverpool, among the other clubs, to be suggested as getting favorable decisions is one that many fans won't agree with, particularly looking back at incidents like the Ryan Gravenberch red card.

However, it shows how tribalism can get in the way of an otherwise important discussion about the technology itself, with the points about spontaneity being particularly pertinent.

Whether VAR remains will be down to the Premier League clubs, who would have to table a vote on whether it stays or goes. The last vote occurred in 2024, where the teams voted in favor of its stay, as it looks set to remain for a while yet.