Why will the match official be talking during World Cup games? VAR decisions explained
FIFA is borrowing from American football for the World Cup.
In a World Cup first, all video-assisted referee decisions at the tournament in Australia and New Zealand will be announced to the stadium and broadcast audiences. Rather than having to guess whether that was or wasn’t a handball, or why a goal was waved off, the match official will announce the offense, who committed it and the VAR decision.
If that sounds similar to what the NFL has been doing for years, that’s the idea. FIFA wants to have transparency for what are often controversial calls. Fans might still disagree with the result, but at least there won’t be questions about what the call was and, more importantly, why.
Here’s all you need to know about VAR:
What is VAR?
It stands for video-assistant referee, and it utilizes technology to make or confirm calls that could be missed by the match official.
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How does it work?
It’s similar to the NFL’s instant replay process. A fifth official, aided by an assistant VAR and offside VAR, will review the play in question, using video from the 12 cameras in each stadium and data from a sensor inside the ball.
Goals, fouls that result in red cards and fouls occurring in the penalty area are all eligible to be reviewed, and plays can also be reviewed to make sure the right player is penalized if an offense occurs.
How long will this take?
There’s no prescribed time, so a VAR call can be made quickly or it can drag out. Just like in NFL games.
Will this mean extended stoppage time, like we saw at the men’s World Cup in Qatar last fall?
Yes. FIFA wants to be as accurate as possible, both in the calls that are made and the actual times of the games. Referees have been told to be meticulous about tracking the time spent on VAR calls, goal celebrations, injuries and substitutions, and to add every second of it to the end of regulation.
Even one or two VAR calls will add several minutes, so lengthy amounts of stoppage time won’t be out of the norm. In Qatar, the average was 11 minutes of stoppage time.
What prompted all this?
FIFA says it wants transparency. Maybe not in its financial dealings or that votes that decide where World Cups will be played. But on the field, it wants fans to be confident that even subjective decisions are rooted in facts and data.
VAR was used at the 2019 World Cup, and again at last year’s men’s tournament. In January, the International Football Association Board approved a proposal to test in-game announcements of the VAR decisions. It was done without problems at the Club World Cup in Morocco in February and the men’s Under-20 World Cup in Argentina earlier this summer, so FIFA approved it for this World Cup.