VAR has long been controversial since it was introduced in the Premier League ahead of the 2019/20 season, but English lawmakers want major tweaks to the technology.
VAR has been criticized for causing long delays (Image: Getty Images)
The FA is considering a ‘coaches challenge’ to reduce the number of VAR delays. The technology has been used in the Premier League since the 2019/20 season.
However, rather than reducing the number of controversial refereeing decisions, the number of complaints has increased, leading some to believe that VAR is not eliminating refereeing mistakes. Some people are frustrated by the long outages caused by technology.
One way free agents could try to reduce that is by using techniques such as coach challenges. A system similar to cricket would then be introduced, with coaches using two failed appeals per match, with appeals retained in the event of a successful reversal.
While VAR and other technologies will be used for factual decisions such as offside, coaches will have the opportunity to consider VAR for subjective decisions. The International FA Board (Ifab) plans to review VAR once every two years, and the FA plans to promote a trial system.
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FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said after Ifab’s annual general meeting: “Another area of interest is what we can learn from other trials that have taken place. So (FVS) there is a model where the referees judge the matches but the coaches have a challenge system.”
“What can we learn from that? Are there any elements that we should consider adopting for the future? Because it changes the dynamics, reduces the number of VAR interventions that take place, and essentially takes the burden off coaches.”
“I think that’s something we may continue to learn as we experiment with that model in parts of the game where we fundamentally can’t implement full VAR at the moment. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong model going forward.”
FA focuses on changes to VAR system (Image: Getty Images)
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He added: “Considerations are underway about how best to use VAR and the balance between making important decisions correctly and not delaying games.”
And while the FA will be very supportive of the system, former referee David Herreray will disagree. Commenting on the introduction of the challenge, Ifab’s current technical director said: “There is no reason to have a challenge for VAR as the video match officials check all incidents. VAR is primarily designed for competitions where there are only one, two, three or up to four cameras.”
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