Video Assistant Referee (VAR)

 Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is quite new to soccer. VAR is intended to help the official referee when make more accurate decisions on incidents that happened in a game. VAR is primarily used in circumstances where there was a questionable foul that can lead to a penalty/ free kick, a controversial goal, and when giving out red cards to ensure the correct player is punished. The first step to VAR is for the incident to be committed. There is a room with VAR officials that are closely monitoring the game from many angles. Once the incident is committed, the VAR officials can ask the referee to review the call or the referee can ask the officials to review the call. There will also be a small screen on the sideline where the referee can go to revise the play. Lastly, the referee can make an accurate decision and even over turn his previous decision if one was made before VAR. This new technology was first brought introduced in men's soccer in 2017. The Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States and Australia's A- League were the first to use it. Var then expanded to other parts of the world such as Germany and Italy. For women, VAR was not used until 2019 in the Women's World Cup. Although VAR allows for more accurate calls by the referee, many dislike this technological addition because it takes away from the pace of the game and reverses calls that would have gone unnoticed.

The first picture shows what the VAR room looks like. There are multiple screens all showing different camera angles of the same play. The second picture shows the referee after he paused the game to review a play. He is also shown wearing a headset which is used to communicate to the officials in the VAR room.