Just over eight years after it was used for the first time, in a match in the USA, we are fully accustomed to VAR, the video assistant referee, right?
You, possibly yes. I am not. In the vast majority of matches I watch on TV, I know he’s there. And I know that there is almost a 100% chance that he will appear at some point during the game.
I’m aware of this, but I’ll never get used to the fact that, with every goal that comes, I’ll have to wait a few moments, usually longer than tolerable, to know if it was a goal.
Because the infamous VAR, with a series of cameras and angles at its disposal, does its best to find an irregularity that almost no one saw: an offside, a foul, a handball from the attacker.
It is as fair, honest and correct as it is frustrating, irritating and annoying. I will never stop being sure that football, with VAR, has lost its naturalness. Incorporated a crutch.
Anyway, technology is boring, but most countries – Sweden is a welcome exception – approve of it and consider it vital. Amen, what to do?
One problem with VAR is that its installation and execution are expensive, in the thousands of reais/dollars/euros, between equipment, operation and professionals involved.
FIFA, football’s highest governing body, boasts that 65 of its members, spread across the five confederations, in more than 200 competitions “have benefited from the implementation of VAR solutions that assist the refereeing team in conducting the game”.
However, FIFA has more than 200 members. In other words, the vast majority (close to 2/3) do not use the system in their championships. There is a lack of structure and money.
To try to ensure that a greater number of countries can prevent “clear and obvious errors” (it is in these situations that VAR must intervene, but it insists on interfering in doubtful and interpretative cases) from happening, an alternative proposal is being tested.
This is what I call the Technician’s Challenge. Seen, for example, in the NFL (American football) and the NBA (basketball). The coach, if he considers that the referee made a mistake in a call, can contest it.
In football, each team would be entitled to two challenges per match. And they would be made possible by the so-called VS, Video Support. To do this, it is enough that the cameras that show the game are connected to a video monitor that can reproduce the questioned move.
There don’t need to be 10, 20, 30 cameras, like VAR has. It could even be just one.
To use VS, the coach must make a signal with his arm raised, immediately after defining the play, and also hand a request card to the fourth referee, who is on the side of the field, between the benches.
The field referee is called and consults the monitor, then makes the decision: maintain the marking, which should be the practice, or modify it, in case there has been a scandalous error.
The Coach’s Challenge via VS, like VAR, should only be used in four scenarios: goal/no goal; penalty/non-penalty; expulsion (direct red card); identity error (card given to a player when another player committed an infraction).
FIFA, which reported the success of the VS in futsal matches, tested it this year in under-20 women’s football tournaments and welcomes the expansion of the experience. Lower divisions in Italy and Germany are interested.
For this “poor cousin” of VAR to be implemented around the world, it is necessary that Ifab (International Football Association Board), which controls football’s rules, gives its approval. The next meeting of the body is in March 2025.
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