FIFA is taking a page out of the NFL’s book at the Women’s World Cup this summer.
Referees will explain their VAR decisions to the crowds at the stadium and at home throughout the tournament, ESPN reported on Friday.
The International Football Association Board announced in January it would be doing a 12-month trial run of the VAR explanations at international tournaments. The method was tested at the FIFA Club World Cup and men's Under-20 World Cup earlier this year, and now it will be implemented for the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
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VAR allows the referee to review red cards, penalties, goal decisions and offsides with help from video match officials. The referees would then review the play at a video monitor, signal their new ruling and resume play without a verbal explanation of what led to the decision. Now, they will relay their findings to the audience.
“I have to say that there are other experiences in other sports, namely the NFL in American football, who have been doing this for quite a long time,” Pierluigi Collina, chairman of FIFA's referee committee, said in February. “It seems that the referees are pretty comfortable with this.”
Video assistance has been a prominent part of top-level soccer after being included in the 2018/19 edition of the Laws of the Game. VAR was used at the 2018 men’s World Cup, the 2019 Women’s World Cup and the latest men’s World Cup this past winter. There were 27 VAR interventions at the 2022 World Cup, and 25 calls were overturned.
