'VAR has to rein its neck in' - how I'd change football for the fans

After more than 50 years involved in football - as a player, coach and manager in what I consider to be the greatest team sport in the world - I've witnessed many changes on and off the field.

There's a reason legendary former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once proclaimed football was 'the people's game' - and that's because it belongs to the fans.

Today's supporters spend enormous amounts of their hard-earned money buying season tickets, and shirts for their children, and on travelling up and down the country to support their team.

That's why, when I was asked to give my views on what I would change to improve football today, I have not tried to reinvent anything. Instead, I wanted to focus on things that would benefit the fans.

My biggest issue is that referees and the VAR are becoming more important than the game itself.

So, for a start, VAR has to rein its neck in. Video assistant referees are here to stay, but we have to change the way they are being used.

'It's impossible not to notice referees'

Television has transformed our national game in the past few decades, markedly for the better.

It has pumped enormous amounts of money into facilities and enabled clubs to attract some of the most gifted players in world football, but it is the intensive TV coverage and its forensic analysis and wall-to-wall punditry debates that led to the birth of VAR.

VAR was brought in to rectify clear and obvious refereeing mistakes like Diego Maradona's infamous 'Hand of God' goal against England - or Thierry Henry's handball that led to France's decisive goal against the Republic of Ireland in a play-off for the 2010 World Cup.

If it was used in the right way - for incidents like those where there is absolutely no debate - VAR would be a wonderful invention.

But unfortunately we are witnessing a worrying trend that has to be challenged and, I believe, corrected.

In my day, referees were judged on whether you noticed them or not. Now it is impossible not to notice them - mic-ed up, with video recorders on their chest, and even making announcements to the crowd.

On top of that, the game is continuously stopped while phases of play are checked by VAR for even the minutest of incidents.

Everything is examined for infringements, meaning no goal can be celebrated unanimously any more until it has been cleared, with the dreaded checks by Stockley Park hanging over stadiums like a dark cloud.

The time it takes to make these calls one way or another is outrageous, to the degree I would say it is an affront to the game of football in this country.

The crowd is currently left waiting while VAR makes a decision, for as long as it takes

'Give VAR two minutes to make a call'

How many times do we witness a referral, and immediately come to a conclusion ourselves after one viewing, only to have to wait an extra two or three minutes - or more - before the same decision is reached by VAR?

The first thing I would change is that any referrals to Stockley Park can last no longer than two minutes to look at any passage of play.

If it takes any longer to make a call, then it cannot be clear and obvious, which is meant to be the threshold in the first place.

Also, if the people in the booth cannot judge a decision in that time, then in my opinion they should not be there.

On that note, I would ensure that every booth also includes an ex-professional - a former manager, coach or player - as well as the replay operator, the VAR and assistant VAR. The professional might not be up to speed with the laws of the game but they would understand the game and how it's played.

As director of the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOL), Howard Webb is the referees' chief. He works alongside Michael Owen on his own TV show, and former refs like Mike Dean and Dermot Gallagher do the same with ex-professional players on their own shows too.

They all seem to get on pretty well, so let's even it up and get a few ex-players and other professionals helping out with decisions during the game.

Time-keeping is another thing I'd change. I want every game to have a clock that can be stopped for injuries, VAR and excessive time-wasting - at the discretion of the referee.

Everyone in the stadium could then calculate how long there is to go in a game, with no more guessing about how many minutes will be added on at the end.

I used to laugh about this when I was with all the clubs I managed in the Premier League, because if we were beating the big teams there would always be more than five minutes - but if we were losing to them, it was always less than three.

'Make referees invisible again'

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.