Tony Pulis column: ‘VAR has to rein its neck in’ – how I’d change football for the fans

Referees are controlled and guided by governing bodies so they have to be held accountable for a lot of the above misgivings, but we have to get away from the situation we are in, where they have become too prevalent.

We need to find a way of making referees invisible again because, at the moment, we have a system that has turned officiating into nothing less than empire building, meaning you often hear more people talking about VAR and refereeing decisions than you do about goals scored or conceded.

I actually sometimes feel sorry for referees, because a lot of this has nothing to do with them. It is the amendments to the laws in recent seasons that have made decisions far more complicated than they should be.

For example, when Manchester City beat Liverpool on Sunday, the big talking point afterwards was Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed goal.

With the old-school way that offside was decided, Andy Robertson was definitely offside because he was beyond City’s backline. There is no doubt about that.

But the way the law reads now, with references to impacting on play, the line of sight or interfering with the goalkeeper, you can be deeper than the last defender and ruled onside.

Everything is too subjective to each individual incident, which means the referee’s interpretation takes centre stage.

The same thing has happened with the law for handball. I don’t think anyone really knows what handball is any more – there are so many variations to every decision, it makes it almost impossible for on-field referees or VAR to get it right.

Over-complicating things has taken the joy out of football, which I find ridiculous.

Let’s make things simple again, so we can get our game back and start talking about goals again, not refereeing decisions.

Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.