By: Solomon Wise, 2023 November
A video assistant referee (VAR) is a match official who assists the referee only in the event of clear and obvious errors during a football match. The VAR officials make decisions by reviewing video footage and providing advice to the centre referee based on those reviews, four VAR officials officiate a match that is the main VAR referee and three assistant video assistant referees.
HISTORY
VAR was a project in the early 2010s under the direction of the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) which was tested in mock trials during the 2012/13 season of the Eredivisie (Netherlands’ top football league). Gianni Infantino who was Sepp Blatter’s successor in FIFA approved the VAR trials in 2016 after Blatter had dismissed it earlier.
The A-League in Australia became the first professional top-flight league to introduce VAR into league matches in April of 2017 which led to the adoption of the USA in using the VAR in August 2017. Another top league in Europe soon followed suit with Germany (Bundesliga) and Italy (Serie A) adopting VAR for their 2017/18 season. Ligue 1 and La Liga became the next to adapt with it being approved in the 2018/19 season, The EPL introduced VAR in 2019 after a particularly egregious offside call on Southampton’s Charlie Austin. Internationally, VAR was introduced in a friendly match between France and Italy in June 2016 and then FIFA approved the use of it in the 2018 World Cup which they termed to be the “cleanest” World Cup in history. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) controls the VAR and oversees the law of the game and approved trials.
VAR can be used to review decisions made by the referee and some decisions made by the main referee can be overturned such as:
- Goal/no goal
- Penalty/no penalty
- Bookings
- Offside
HOW DOES VAR WORK
Step one: The incident occurs and either the referee informs the VAR or the VAR informs the main referee that the incident should be reviewed.
Step two: the VAR then reviews and studies and the main referee is notified via his headset what the footage shows.
Step three: decision and action to be taken by the main referee by viewing the footage on the side of the pitch known as OFR (on-field review).
In conclusion, Leicester’s city Iheanacho became the first player in English football to have a goal awarded by the VAR system six years ago.
Do you think VAR is good or bad for football?
