The summer has lost a bit of its glow, the constant heatwave, three BBQs a week and glorious World Cup now seem a long time ago but VAR is at least set to make a comeback in the Champions League.
Before the World Cup people were split on VAR. I’ve always been a big advocate of the video refereeing system, as you’ll know if you’ve read any of my articles on the subject, but I can understand why many weren’t so hot on it.
But then we had Russia. Oh it was a wonderful time of songs about Gareth Southgate making us all randy, Kieran Trippier’s beautiful right boot and referees making a television symbol in the air to check if they’d got a decision right or not.
VAR transformed a lot of people’s opinions on it as for the main part it worked pretty darn well but as soon as we’d fallen in love with it, it had gone, at least in the Premier League.
Clubs in England decided against it for this year, with a view to introducing it next season, but we’ll soon have our fill of referees watching TV again.
According to the Times, UEFA are considering including it in this season’s Champions League from the quarter final stages, with it set to be recommended next week and the final decision to be made next month.
It’s a bit of a u-turn for Europe’s football governing body. Under Michel Platini they introduced the extra officials behind the goals, favouring more officials over technology.
That was also a system that was preferred by Pierluigi Collina but the former referee stepped down as Uefa’s head of refereeing last month so there’s no reason not to dump the additional assistant refs.
UEFA will only use VAR from the quarters finals because doing it before so would be too difficult. The group stages see so many games per game day that it would require too many officials and not every ground is set up for it.
The quarters finals see just one game per game day allowing for the extra officials.
Welcome back VAR, we’ve missed you!
sportbible.com
According to the Times, UEFA are considering including it in this season’s Champions League from the quarter final stages, with it set to be recommended next week and the final decision to be made next month.
It’s a bit of a u-turn for Europe’s football governing body. Under Michel Platini they introduced the extra officials behind the goals, favouring more officials over technology.
That was also a system that was preferred by Pierluigi Collina but the former referee stepped down as Uefa’s head of refereeing last month so there’s no reason not to dump the additional assistant refs.
UEFA will only use VAR from the quarters finals because doing it before so would be too difficult. The group stages see so many games per game day that it would require too many officials and not every ground is set up for it.
The quarters finals see just one game per game day allowing for the extra officials.
Welcome back VAR, we’ve missed you!
sportbible.com
