No plans to broadcast ‘chaotic’ live VAR decisions – IFAB،
The chief executive of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) has decided to broadcast audio of VAR decisions live during matches, saying it would be “a chaotic experience”.
Calls are growing for discussions between officials to take place during matches, but this remains prohibited by the IFAB. There are also concerns that live VAR audio could create “an unsafe environment for referees”.
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The IFAB tests referees and announces their final decision to the public, as seen during this summer’s Women’s World Cup, which is expected to be expanded to domestic competitions next year. But there is no desire to go further and lead the discussion with the VAR hub.
“I say categorically no, they should not [be played out live,]“I was allowed to observe and see the communication between the match officials during a review and it’s quite a chaotic situation, not in a negative sense but there are a lot of people talking at the same time. ” time and I think it would be counterproductive for anyone to listen to all these voices talking to each other.
“Then you have the VAR and the VAR assistant, the replay operators, the referee and maybe even the assistant referees and the fourth official, so all of a sudden it becomes quite a chaotic experience.
“We have given the green light to test the announcement of decisions to provide a little more transparency in decision-making, but we are not ready at this stage to open live communication to the public.”
The IFAB only allows VAR audio to be shared in the days following a match, and Europe’s top leagues are just starting to embrace this. The Premier League was the first to introduce the ‘Match Officials Mic’d Up’ TV show earlier this year, with Serie A launching its ‘Open VAR’ show this month. LaLiga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 do not share any VAR audio.
Brud also rejected comparisons with other sports and suggested lessons should be learned from cricket and rugby.
“Football is different because everyone is scrutinizing every decision and then every word would be analyzed in the media, which would create a very dangerous environment for referees,” he said.
“They need to feel safe when they are focused on decision-making.”
Liverpool suffered a major VAR error last month when Luis Díaz had a goal disallowed for offside, when he was actually onside. The VAR team only realized after the resumption of play that an error had been made due to a communication problem, it was then against protocol to change the decision.
Brud rejected the idea that a change should be made solely because of a rare and exceptional error.
“We always have to remember that these things don’t happen very often,” he added. “We shouldn’t immediately start questioning the whole setup because this situation happened in one match out of thousands.
“We will definitely improve some areas of VAR if necessary. If we need to fix an issue where humans made a mistake, let’s see.”
