IT'S ABOUT TIME! UNIFORMIZATION OF VAR CRITERIA ARE DISCUSSED AT A MEETING IN RIO DE JANEIRO

Fifa and referee instructors federations affiliated to Conmebol and Concacaf are participating in Rio, from today, Wednesday (5), until tomorrow, in a meeting to discuss the standardization of the criteria used by VAR. They are meeting at the Hilton Hotel, in Barra da Tijuca.

Based on the exposure of game situations, they analyze what the best path adopted by the video referee should be. It is the second event to deal with the topic held in South America, always with the approval of FIFA. The first was in 2022, in Paraguay.

“The event deals with the standardization of concepts and considerations that should punctuate the relationship between the video referee (VAR) and the field referee and gives consistency to the instructions that go be passed to these referees. FIFA takes this meeting to all continents and our expectation is that it will be annual”, said Mike Van Der Roest, VAR manager at FIFA.

He stated that the dynamics of football have their dose of subjectivity , but there are situations that require cutting-edge resources in order to correct any errors.

“Football has its interpretative part, but this cannot be the case when discussing whether a move took place inside or outside of the area, whether the ball entered or not, whether it went over the baseline or not before a goal was validated, etc. We have technological resources that can also be used for interpretative decisions and, of course, that are recurrent for factual moves”, he commented.

Roest added that these VAR standardization events have given good results, which which can already be proven in several competitions organized by FIFA.

One of the representatives of the CBF Arbitration Commission at the meeting, Péricles Bassols endorsed Roest's words.

“It's an event very important, with the aim of this standardization. These are rich and enlightening debates, always with the aim of making football fairer and more dynamic”, he said.

In addition to Bassols, the CBF group at the event includes former referees Rodrigo Joia, Giulliano Bozzano and Emerson Carvalho, who officially represented the presidency of the CBF, and names such as Colombian Oscar Ruiz and Argentine Hernan Maidana.