VAR set for roll-out in Greece in 2018/19
 

Football’s latest innovation, the Video Assistant Referee system - aka VAR - is coming to Greece in the new season.

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Used for the first time in a major competition at this summer’s World Cup, VAR gas proved an overwhelmingly popular feature, helping to eliminate referring errors.

And in what will come as welcome news in Greece, the country will also start to use the technology in the 2018/19 season.

The Hellenic Football Federation (EPO) have confirmed that VAR will first be used in lower league matches as a trial, and if all goes well, SuperLeague matches will have VAR in place for the second half of the coming campaing.

EPO are still in the middle of a consultation process while an international tender will also be launched for companies to bid for the installation and management of the VAR systems, which is expected to conclude by October.

"We have decided to introduce VAR to the Greek Championship matches; an international tender has been published and this is a very good development for Greek football which will help create a legacy of credibility in our game,” said EPO president Vaggelis Grammenos.

He added: “This is what we have seen in the World Cup matches so far, where many refereeing “mistakes” have been avoided and there is fairness on the pitch.”

Perhaps of all the tweaks in international rules, regulations and innovations, VAR is the most surefire way of helping eliminate the endless controversies and conspiracy theories among Greek fans over referees.

It is not uncommon in Greece for overly suspicious fans to see almost every single referring decision as a travesty of justice against their team because of some higher power’s “apparent” association with a rival club.

Hopefully VAR will put an end to that and there will be no need for measures such as a foreign referee that we saw at the 2018 Greek Cup final.

What is VAR?

Unless you have been living under a rock and not watching the World Cup (shame on you), then VAR is a Video Assistant Referee system. When officials on the pitch need help to make or clarify a decision, they can watch the action/incident back on video replay.

There are also a team of referees based in a VAR room, who are constantly monitoring the game to provide assistance.

Despite the advance in technology, VAR has proved to be controversial, with some in favour of it and some people against it for various reasons, such as causing big delays in the restart of play.

A total of 335 incidents were checked during the group stage - nearly seven per game - with 14 on-field reviews made by referees and three reviews made by the VAR team on factual decisions.

Referees called 95% of incidents correctly without VAR, but the system - which is being used for the first time at a major international tournament at Russia 2018 - improved that success rate to 99.3%.

"We have always said that VAR doesn't mean perfection - there could still be the wrong interpretation or a mistake - but I think you would agree that 99.3% is very close to perfection," said FIFA referee chief Pierluigi Collina.
 

by Graham Wood

Image Source: .gr

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