UEFA is planning to use video review for the first time at next year’s Super Cup, the annual game between the winners of the Champions League and Europa League. The system may then roll out to the 2019/20 Champions League and the Europa League the following season.
On Friday, a day after soccer’s European governing body made the draw of teams for this year’s Champions League, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin talked to media about how his organization plans to integrate video review. Video assistant referees debuted at the World Cup this summer, racking up successes including overturning a Neymar penalty in a game between Brazil and Costa Rica. The system also stirred up controversy, though, with the Royal Moroccan Football Federation writing an official complaint to FIFA over what it interpreted as unequal application of the technology.
“For now, it doesn’t look as though it will happen,” Ceferin said on Friday, according to the Associated Press. “VAR is not completely clear for now, but we also know now there is no way back any more.”
The scale of the Champions League might make implementing VAR in that tournament more challenging than using it at the World Cup. There were at most four games per day being played in Russia this summer, and no more than two games at any one time. During the group stage of the Champions League, there will be eight games per day, with the majority of them played simultaneously.
“We don’t know yet how to do it,” Ceferin said.