Burnley boss Scott Parker shares honest feelings on VAR and the flow of football matches

Burnley boss Scott Parker shares his honest feelings on VAR and the flow of football matches today compared to what it used to be.

He finds the constant rule changes and VAR interventions challenging, as they make the game feel “sterile” and disrupt its natural rhythm.

There decisions that are delayed, pulling back plays by multiple phases, which diminishes the raw emotion of key moments like goal celebrations.

As a lifelong fan, player, and manager, Scott has said he valued the emotional highs of football, which he feels are being eroded by VAR’s delays and uncertainty.

The hope is that the game’s emotional essence can be preserved, expressing frustration at the loss of spontaneous joy in critical moments.

And this is just one of the reasons why so many more match attending fans are beginning to prefer enjoying going to EFL and non league matches instead.

“I just don’t want the emotion to go out of the game, I’m an emotional person.”

Scott Parker shares his feelings on VAR and the flow of football matches. pic.twitter.com/xQaunZfJnH

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) September 13, 2025

Interviewer Sanny Rudravajhala: “I think the other thing that’s kind of coming out when we’re getting these decisions on VAR is the flow of the game and how that’s kind of changing and evolving. It does feel like it’s certainly having an impact. How do you manage that side of things?”

Scott: “Well, it’s tough to manage. There’s different rules coming in each and every year really, or different gadgets.

“And I get it, the game’s evolving and life evolves really and how quick the world’s moving. We need to be adaptable to that, which I understand. I do get that.

“My feeling was, it’s just my opinion, whether it’s right or the wrong decision, just the actual feel of a game at certain moments has become for me a little bit sterile.

“The way I stand in a box now in that coach’s area, there’s something which has long gone from where it was two or three years ago when I stood in that box, and that’s because you just don’t know what can happen.

“The game could be pulled back four or five phases. Is it offside, is it onside? There’s a VAR check on practically every goal, which I understand. But the feel of it is pretty sterile.”

Interviewer: “What changes might you want to see? But it sounds a bit, sounds like you’re always a fan first, then a player, then a manager, and that joy, that love of football that we all have.”

Scott: “I just don’t want the emotion to go out of the game. I’m emotional person, full stop. And from six years of age to now, as a player, as a young boy, it was the emotion of the game. When I used to go and watch football live, when I watch it on TV, it was that emotion.

“And the emotion was a goal celebration. The emotion of just everything that at certain moments a game can bring that is slowly, I feel, just going out of the game.

“It’s either that emotion is delayed and at that point it’s not a raw emotion.

“Okay, yeah, well it was a goal and you lose that… certainly that’s the way I’m feeling and maybe that’s because of the position I’m in and the position I’m in at that moment in time is I’m thinking, right, goal, not goal, I don’t know, but I still feel as a fan now if I wasn’t sitting in the position I’m sitting in as a coach and at the height of the importance of what it is and it’s at times desperation of I want it to be a goal and I just don’t feel that, I feel that emotion’s going.”

This is what Twitter users are saying as Burnley boss Scott Parker shares his honest feelings on VAR and the flow of football matches…

@AlanBiggs1: What I really like about this is that Scott Parker is a relatively young manager. He can’t be seen as a dinosaur pushing back against “progress.” But more importantly he’s so right about why VAR is so wrong for football.

@AndyPerrey: Would be interesting to hear if he thought it was better in the Championship, Alan. From a fan’s perspective, the raw emotion of a goal going in is still realised in the Championship, as you know there is no VAR.

@dysonblade: Bang on ⚽️

@_Ade_: Spot on. We can all try and pretend how exciting football is but it’s never been so bad as a fan of a club in the prem.

@RodJones1960: I’ve said many times and I stand by it, they’re not bothered about the match going fans any more. It’s all about the tv viewers at top level. VAR is for their benefit.

@gary302: Just seen an interview with Scott Parker in the aftermath of last Saturday’s match at Old Trafford. He talks very well about the abomination that is VAR and how it will eventually completely fuck the game of football up.

@Amarpreet_MUFC: The game’s more or less on its last legs now.

@UrmstonMeadows: Eventually? It’s already fucked it up. If you’re going to have it then the guy in the VAR should be the arbiter, not the referee. Ridiculous this attitude of “undermining the referee”.

@DonnyPezzolla: Eventually you say… 🤔

@LeKingsCollar: Some give him a hard time, I think Scott Parker is a top bloke. He was a very good, proper footballer too. Good manager and knows the game well, Gary.

Scott Parker complains about VAR after Burnley lose to late Bruno Fernandes penalty at Man Utd