VAR was introduced to the Elite Division in 2018 for goal-line decisions only. It now reviews offside to the millimetre, serious foul play, penalty decisions, and handball — and almost every fanbase outside Liverpool, Manchester and London believes, with real conviction, that it doesn't apply evenly.
There's no hard proof of bias, and the review panel that oversees VAR decisions has repeatedly rejected the suggestion. But the perception has calcified into something close to consensus among the other 22 clubs' supporters: a marginal penalty shout given for one of the big three, an near-identical shout waved away for someone else, week after week, season after season.
This season it boiled over properly for the first time in a post-match press conference, when a manager — usually cautious about criticising officials — said flatly: "I'll get fined for saying this, and I'll say it anyway. Some clubs get the benefit of the doubt in this league. Mine isn't one of them." He was fined. The clip has been watched more than anything else connected to his club all season.
Whatever the truth of it, the perception itself has become a story of its own — a slow-building distrust of the technology that was supposed to make the game fairer, not more divisive.