Even if you can’t tell your offside from your elbow (in the face), you’ve probably heard of VAR. The video assistant referee has been introduced into top-level football to cut out errors by referees. At every Premier League game, a VAR referee watches TV feeds of the game to check potentially contentious decisions.

Moaning at referees has long been the staple of football fans. “That was never a penalty!” “Ref, do you need glasses? It was offside by a mile.”

VAR was supposed to resolve, or at least reduce, such disagreements. Instead, it has generated even more discord. So much so that the debate about VAR has spilled over from the sports pages into the news pages and discussions on the Today programme.

It’s tempting to dismiss the controversy over VAR as a story of interest only to football fans. But it’s also one that helps illuminate our broader relationship to technology, at a time when technology, especially AI, is beginning to shape many aspects of our lives, from the possibility of driverless cars to algorithms that can make decisions about medical treatment. In many of these areas, we worry that human judgments may be flawed and expect technology to provide better, more objective solutions. That’s exactly the argument for VAR, too. So, non-football fans, bear with me, while I talk football and VAR, for the debate about VAR should be of interest to all of us.

VAR aims to eliminate “clear and obvious errors” by referees by using TV replays to allow officials to view contentious incidents from different camera angles and by reconstructing the movement of the ball or players to check whether a goal was actually scored and whether a player was offside.

The trouble is, what constitutes a “clear and obvious error” is itself a judgment call. Much of the controversy has arisen from fans disagreeing with VAR overturning a refereeing decision that they think should have stood or not overturning a decision they think is flawed. Instead of fan fury being directed at the on-field referee, it’s now directed at both the on-field and the VAR referee.

What are seen as “objective” decisions are often problematic. Take the offside rule. The rule has become more complicated in recent years, but in essence it states that a player is offside if any part of his body is nearer to the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent. The rule is there primarily to stop a forward gaining an unfair advantage by ignoring the play and simply standing near the goal waiting for the ball.