What is VAR?

Video Assistant Referees refers to a collection of three referees whose job is to review the decision of the main referee, by watching a video playback of the relevant incident. The four types of decisions that can be reviewed by the VAR team include:

• Goals and violations leading to goals

• Issuance of red cards

• Awarding of penalties

• Mistaken identity in the issuance of cards

https://pixabay.com/en/referee-nfl-instant-replay-game-1558427/

When the VAR team provides their recommendation, the referee can do one of the following

• Overturn/Uphold their initial decision based on the advice of the team

• Review the video themselves and make a decision

• Overrule the decision of the VAR team.

Football (Soccer) has been plagued with controversies due to what people call bad officiating and VAR has been a solution that has been proposed for a very long time. It has only been in recent times that major Football Associations have started paying attention to the calls of supporter of this system.

The use of this technology has been a major talking point especially in the months leading to FIFA World Cup in Russia. It has been reported that VAR would be used in Russia. This was decided after football lawmakers voted unanimously to use this technology in what I refer to as the premiere league of world football

https://pixabay.com/en/russia-russian-world-cup-2018-3037635/

I personally do not understand why it has taken so long for the football associations to implement the use of VAR technology. You would want a game to be officiated as fairly as possible, so why not implement a technology that would only help the game? Beats me.