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ISSUE no 31, JULY 2018
The Video Assistant Referee in Review
Amidst all the f alling down and rolling around, this World Cup has proved most exciting with
all its upsets, early exits of the favourites and the ongoing of bantering of fans back and forth as
they jump from band wagon to band wagon. Throughout however one must take time to reflect
on the most aggressive change that occurred during this 2018 world cup, the Video Assistant
Referee (VAR). VAR was introduced to assist in improving decision making as it pertains to
mainly four match-changing situations; penalties, goals, direct red cards and mistaken iden-
tity. The process occurs when the referee informs the VAR, or the VAR recommends to the referee that a decision/incident should be
reviewed. Once the video footage is reviewed by the VAR the referee is advised via headset what the video shows. The referee can
then decide to review the video footage on the side of the field of play before taking the appropriate action/decision, or the referee
can accept the information from the VAR and take the appropriate action/decision. In short a new breed of officiating requirements
has now been added to include a new functional unit of officiators, the VAR assistants themselves.
In acknowledging the element of human error, use of the technology at the 2018 World Cup has already reflected that there is an in-
crease in accuracy in officiating to a factor of over 99% in situations where applied. For the layman however in the early group stages
some comments included “the need for a VAR for the VAR itself”, as there have been mistakes which perhaps should have gone to
VAR but did not. This in itself now leads to the discussion of what is defined as a match changing incident. It also raises the issue of
consistent application on the part of referees; but the players and coaches themselves as stakeholder must know now that with
Big Brother watching the tactics of grappling and unwanted hugging in the box, it is now harder to disguise under such a
watchful eye. Whilst use of the technology will not eliminate the potential of bias it does now bring greater transparency to the game
and puts officials under less pressure, knowing the burden of wrongful decisions can be corrected if the tool is viewed as an ally; as
opposed to a performance tracking device for which it also serves. Interpretation of laws will still remain issues however as in exam-
ples of interpreting the deliberate nature of hand balls in the penalty box. But essentially what has occurred still shows that the use of
VAR has allowed for the reversal of as much as 60% of wrong decisions that would have otherwise been made during the games of
the 2018 World Cup. Put in context one can ask what would have been the eventual outcome of the world cup when there was the
“Hand of God” incident had VAR been in use then.
VAR then will serve to clean up the game and bring it to a better place in terms of fair play and fair outcomes through the elimination
of blatant mistakes on the part of referees. It should be noted though the referee can refuse the advice of VAR. To further extract posi-
tive usage from VAR, in reviewing any planned clauses to do with its use, it should be stressed that upon review of VAR, where simu-
lation and or diving is occurred to obtain
unfair advantage, the options of the referee
can also now include issuing cards for such
acting after the occurrence itself. With such
great inroads the use of technology brings
to the sport, the next consideration for
FIFA is how to keep the developing nations
with access to these game changing tech-
nologies so they too can eliminate the mar-
gin of errors that occur in their own back
yards .