Andy Burnham wants to let fans drink beer while watching football. This is either visionary policy or a man who has not sat through a VAR review in the last three years.
Consider the logic: a supporter is already experiencing rage-induced heart palpitations as the referee stands motionless for ninety seconds while a computer examines whether a defender’s armpit was technically in an offside position. Now add alcohol. Burnham is not proposing a quality-of-life improvement. He is engineering a public health crisis with a pint in hand.
The current ban exists because drunk fans are unpredictable. But here is what Burnham might actually be onto—not as policy, but as survival mechanism. If VAR continues its current trajectory of turning decisive moments into existential philosophy seminars, maybe fans do need a drink. Not to enhance the experience. To survive it.
The real question nobody is asking: would a drunk fan make worse decisions than the ones we are watching on screen? A supporter three pints deep might at least have the excuse of impaired judgment when arguing that a handball call was wrong. The referee has no such defense.
Burnham’s proposal is not about tradition or enjoyment. It is about harm reduction. If football is going to torture us with technology that works worse than our own eyes, the least we deserve is the legal right to numb ourselves in the stands. Not because it enhances fandom. Because it makes the absurdity bearable.
The real scandal would be keeping the ban while keeping VAR.