UEFA referee director Roberto Rosetti said on Tuesday that European football must avoid moving in the direction of microscopic VAR intervention.
Technology has been introduced to erase obvious mistakes, but supporters are unhappy that it is causing matches to be re-referred.
Rosetti did not criticize any sport, but shared general concerns that VAR risks being overreached.
“I think we have forgotten why VAR was introduced,” Rossetti said. “We kind of forgot. Everywhere. You remember, eight years ago, I came to London[to explain to journalists]. We talked about ‘what VAR stands for’.”
“We talked about clear mistakes. Why did we talk about clear and obvious mistakes? Technology does a very good job of making fact-based decisions. When it comes to interpretation, subjective assessments are more difficult.”
“I think we need to talk about this in a meeting at the end of the season. We can’t go in the direction of microscopic VAR intervention. We love football as it is. You can find out a lot when you look at the situation in super slow motion.”
Rosetti also said more work was needed to establish a common interpretation of handball law across Europe, and said he would speak again with chief referees across the continent on the matter.
“We have to speak only one terminology (of handball),” he said. “We certainly talked a lot before the season. We need to talk again (and) have one unified and consistent interpretation. We are working on that.”
The UEFA Champions League will resume later on Tuesday with four final round play-off matches.
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