After the International Football Association Board (IFAB) and FIFA met earlier this month, it was announced that six competitions around the globe would begin to experiment with video assistant referees (VARs).
The only situations that the VARs will take part in with decision-making will include:
1. Goals scored
2. Penalty decisions
3. Direct red card incidents
4. Mistake identities
While The IFAB won’t officially announce whether they will or will not implement VARs until 2018 or 2019, there are plans to test-run it during the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan this December. There will be offline and/or live tests administered in order to help improve the technological set-up and help train participants.
What will video assistant referee experiments look like? See: https://t.co/9SK2QJULg3 Follow @TheIFAB for latest. pic.twitter.com/5LZlt6TyzJ
— FIFA Media (@fifamedia) June 27, 2016
This week, technology providers that are seeking to be a part of the experimental games met in Zurich, Switzerland, headquarters of FIFA.
“Today’s meeting was an opportunity to update the providers on the project and discuss ways to potentially standardize VAR equipment. We also informed them about FIFA’s decision to install a VAR training center at our headquarters here in Zurich. We are looking to set it up in the next months and are inviting different providers from around the world to showcase their technology at the facility,” said Head of FIFA’s Football Technology Innovation Department, Johannes Holzmüller.
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The IFAB had put together a workshop last month for the interested organizations to get together and learn a little more about the project. The IFAB and FIFA hope to improve the technological side of the review process during games. So now is the time to learn more about the different systems available on the market and find which will work the best.
More workshops are planning to take place in the next few months to give the technology providers, leagues and associations more details about the experiments themselves and the implementation of them.
Many fans are skeptical about the use of instant replay but the missed calls that have caused outrage have forced the IFAB to take action. This will be the chance to see whether or not instant replay can properly assist the referees without taking away from the integrity of the game.