Libero 094 | Can VAR Be Fixed?

Libero

Sports, Society & Culture, Soccer

4.9 • 867 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There has been no bigger change to football in the 21st century than VAR. On today’s Libero, Jack Pitt-Brooke, Jonathan Wilson and Tariq Panja want to do more than just complain about it, and the harm that it has done to the modern game. They also want to explore how we got into this position, from Gianni Infantino replacing Sepp Blatter through to its introduction at the 2017 Confederations Cup. We are now about to head into our third men’s World Cup with VAR, and it does feel like a permanent part of the game. So is there any reason for optimism? The team discuss potential tweaks to VAR to improve it. And then whether we can ever be optimistic about bottom-up change, fans standing up together against VAR, and changing football for good. P1: (5:28) P2: (31:31) Produced by: Tom Bassam Email in via getintouch@liberopodcast.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @liberopod Follow us on X @podcast_libero Follow us on Bluesky @liberopodcast.com Follow us on Instagram @liberopod Follow us on TikTok @liberopod Follow us on Facebook @liberopod Music: Kid Kodi - Blue Dot Sessions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Selling your car can be super simple.
0:02.5	If you choose, we buy any car
0:04.3	because they sought out any outstanding finance for you.
0:07.9	Just bring along your final settlement agreement.
0:10.4	If only they could make parallel parking simpler.
0:13.6	To the right bit, mate.
0:14.8	Yeah, back. Back a bit more. Bit more.
0:18.7	Oh, no, too far.
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0:28.6	Hello and welcome to Libero, the podcast about the most important of the least important things, as William Lloyd Garrison once said.
0:45.8	My name's Jack Pitbrook. I'm from The Athletic. I'm joined today by Jonathan Wilson. Hi, Jonathan.
0:50.6	Hi, Jack. Do you want to tell us who William Lloyd Garrison is? Oh, we'll come to that later in the show. Oh, exactly. And Tarrett Pangeff from the New York Times. Hi, Tarak. Hello, guys. Tarrett, I think, if I'm looking over your shoulder, that looks suspiciously to me like a business hotel. It looks like a moldy business hotel, quite right. Can you tell the listeners and viewers where you are? I'm, I think, on the outskirts of Milan.
1:12.9	I'm not exactly sure because you go underneath.
1:14.6	I don't know this city very well,
1:16.4	but somewhere where none of the fancy people live,
1:19.6	basically in Milan for the Winter Olympics.
1:23.7	Oh, wow.
1:24.1	Are you going to be,
1:25.0	you're going to be watching all this skiing and curling and ice hockey?
1:28.8	Well, I definitely won't be watching any skiing because these Olympics, the mountains are out five hours away.
1:34.3	And I'm, my brief is as usual, indoors, typically lurking in hotel lobbies.
1:41.9	This week, the IOC session, which is the meeting of all the great
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