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Soccer

World Cup winner agrees with Jurgen Klopp: 'VAR has to go'

World Cup winner agrees with Jurgen Klopp: 'VAR has to go'Getty Images

Add Emmanuel Petit's voice to the chorus of former players and high-profile pundits who want to see Video Assistant Referees (VAR) banished from football.

Petit is the latest name to call for a return to the pre-VAR days, as the 1998 World Cup winner believes the implentation of video in officiating is "causing too many problems".

Petit's sentiment matches that of outgoing Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who has been a vocal critic of VAR in the years since it was first implemented in the Premier League and around the world.

Speaking on behalf of BoyleSports, who offer the latest Euro 2024 betting, Petit explained that he believes the sport has lost some of its humanity since introducing VAR several years ago.

"Jurgen Klopp is right, VAR has to go," Petit said. "We are living in a world where we’re not allowed to make mistakes anymore.

"We’re not human anymore and now we want machines to replace human being and the interpretation we do with VAR is so weird sometimes.

"It’s causing too many problems in return and there’s so many bad things that outweigh the good. We should avoid VAR and go back to what we had before, where referees can make mistakes.

"Human mistakes is part of football and VAR is taking away from the atmosphere from the game. The biggest tragedy in football is trying to control emotions, it’s spontaneous and I think it’s killing football."

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