Two-year review to be held as football’s lawmakers seek best way forward for VAR

Football’s lawmakers will conduct a two-year review of the best way forward for VAR, 10 years on from its initial trials.

The system is much maligned by some football fans who feel it has crept away from rooting out clear and obvious mistakes and become too forensic.

VAR’s reach was actually extended at Saturday’s International Football Association Board (IFAB) annual general meeting in Wales to give competitions the option of checking corner kicks, while the mandatory protocol will now include checks on factually incorrect second yellow cards and cards issued to the wrong team.

IFAB technical director David Elleray confirmed there would be a two-year review of VAR, with meeting chair Noel Mooney, the chief executive of the Football Association of Wales, saying there needed to be a “wider discussion” of VAR.

His English FA counterpart, Mark Bullingham, even hinted football could move towards a challenge system. At the moment, FIFA is trialling challenges within the Football Video Support (FVS) system in countries which cannot afford the full VAR infrastructure.

Bullingham said: “The other interesting area we’re looking at is what can we learn from other trials being done?

“What can we learn from (the FVS trial), are there elements of that that we should consider adopting for the future?

“Because that changes the dynamic that reduces the amount of times when there is a VAR intervention and effectively puts the onus on the coach.”

Pierluigi Collina, FIFA’s referees’ chief, offered a colourful rationale for the review.

“In Italy…we are used to saying that in every wonderful marriage, there is a crisis after seven years,” he said.

“So it might be possible that people fell in love with VAR and then after some years, as with your wife, you have a small crisis.”

In addition to the extension of VAR protocols, the IFAB brought in new measures to tackle time-wasting and the disruption of tempo in matches.

The successful introduction of the eight-second rule for goalkeepers has encouraged IFAB to go further on efforts to stop players slowing the game.

Referees will be given the power to start a five-second countdown if they feel players are taking too long over throw-ins and dead-ball goal kicks, with the throw-in reversed or a corner kick the sanction for delaying.

Substitutions must be completed in no more than 10 seconds, otherwise the substitute must stay off for at least one minute.

Any player whose injury forces a stoppage in play must stay off for at least one minute. The Premier League has been trialling a 30-second period, but some within the IFAB did not feel this was long enough to serve as a deterrent.

The IFAB will also commission trials to prevent teams using injuries to goalkeepers as the chance to take a tactical timeout. One type of trial will consider forcing an outfield player to go off for at least a minute when a goalkeeper goes down injured, while another would prevent coaching taking place during such a delay.

All the measures passed on Saturday will feature at the World Cup.

The tournament could also feature new sanctions where players cover their mouth when talking to an opponent, and for players and officials who leave the field in protest at a decision.

It was also confirmed that the Canadian Premier League would conduct trials of the ‘daylight’ offside rule – whereby a player is onside if any part of their body which can legally score is level with the second-last defender.