Time for VAR in the WSL? Arsenal howler brings conversation back to the table after Stina Blackstenius' goal inexplicably disallowed
Arsenal head coach Renee Slegers on the importance of adding VAR to WSL: "It's fine margins, so certain decisions become really big decisions - that's out of our hands. But if you were to ask me now if I was in favour of VAR, I would say yes"
Sunday 9 November 2025 07:10, UK
There was a sense of deja vu when Renee Slegers expressed her support, unprompted, for bringing VAR to the WSL after Saturday's draw with Chelsea.
It was not only the second time she had made her case, it was the second time against this same opponent. "There's more and more at stake in the WSL," she said. "Top games, but also in the relegation battle. And everything in between."
Slegers can make a valid case that refereeing decisions may have cost her side a shot at the WSL title, with one clearly incorrect handball call denying Stina Blackstenius an equaliser against Chelsea and another contentious offside call denying Frida Maanum a late winner.
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Three points would have lifted the Gunners to within two of the league leaders and ended their 32-game unbeaten run, which may have had a further knock-on effect on the Blues. We'll never know for sure. "The officials today have had a huge impact on Arsenal's ability to win the title this season," said Sky Sports' Izzy Christiansen.
Her sense of injustice angered the normally mild-mannered and reserved head coach sufficiently to see her booked during the latter stages of Saturday's game and though she was more considered in her choice of words about the officials' performance after full-time, she made her feelings clear about where she feels things must improve.
"I don't see any players calling for [the handball]," she said of Blackstenius' disallowed goal. "You watch it back - I've only seen it from one angle, and it doesn't look like a handball. That's frustrating, of course.
"It's fine margins, so certain decisions become really big decisions - that's out of our hands. But if you were to ask me now if I was in favour of VAR, I would say yes."
The investment the WSL has undergone in recent years has transformed the women's top flight, but is it time to take another leaf out of the Premier League's book and implement video technology to, in theory at least, eradicate these kinds of mistakes?
"If you're asking me my wishlist, there are things which would be higher up than VAR," said former Scotland midfielder Rachel Corsie on Sky Sports. "I feel some of these decisions, you would just expect the referee to get them right.
"The Blackstenius goal came from a wrongly-awarded corner, too. There was another wrongly awarded one in the first half, and those are straightforward.
"The offsides, they are a finer margin - and technology there is definitely helpful."
Whatever the benefits of VAR, the logistics of its introduction would have its own pitfalls across the WSL with some grounds unable to support enough camera angles for its full implementation.
"It has to be even across the league, across the whole season," said Christiansen. "Anything can happen at any ground, in any week, throughout the season.
"From that perspective, you probably can't have it throughout the league. But should it be in the game? Yes. Today's an example of a push, an acceleration towards the process of hoping it becomes a thing."
Helpfully, a solution may already be at hand. In recent years, FIFA has introduced 'VAR Light' to address this problem using only four cameras - the current minimum at all WSL games - designed specifically for competitions with smaller resources and budgets.
A 'VAR card' trial, officially named Football Video Support, was also tested at the U20 World Cup last month where managers can request two reviews of incidents per game - in a system more akin to video technology in cricket than football.
It is nothing new to hear VAR dreamt of by managers. Then-Chelsea boss Emma Hayes saw a personal request for the technology to be introduced rejected by the Football Association as far back as 2021.
Slegers says she has not been involved in any formal attempts to bring the technology to the women's game more recently. But her comments after the most high-profile game of the season may not have gone unheard.
