By Andrew Warshaw
July 2 – The controversies continue to rage but FIFA’s refereeing chief Pierluigi Collina and his colleagues insist the introduction of video assistant referees (Vars) has been an unqualified success in Russia.
Having reviewed the 48 group games, Collina said there were 335 incidents checked – nearly seven per game – with 14 on-field reviews made by referees and three reviews made by the VAR team on factual decisions.
Of these incidents, referees called 95% of them correctly without VAR but video replays improved this to 99.3% by correcting 14 of them.
“We have had 14 decisions changed by the intervention of VAR, six penalty awards changed on the intervention of VAR – with one changed from a free-kick to a penalty and two penalty awards by the referee being reversed after a monitor review,” he said.
“Before the competition we said VAR does not mean perfection, there could be some wrong interpretation of or mistake but 99.3% is very close to perfection.”
The most dramatic effect of VAR is the number of penalty kicks awarded. Four years ago, 14 were awarded during the tournament, 10 of which occurred in the first round. So far in Russia, 24 penalty kicks – one for every two games – have been awarded, seven as a result of VAR.
Arguably the most contentious issue has been blatant obstruction in the box. Aleksandar Mitrovic and Harry Kane, if early matches of Serbia and England were replayed, would certainly benefit from penalty claims turned down in their respective games against Switzerland and Tunisia.
Similarly Spain could claim failure to review what looked like clear fouls in the box in extra time in their last 16 match against Russia could be VAR game changing moments for non-use of the system.
Several incidents of grabbing have either not been reviewed or not changed upon being reviewed. England and Serbia both raised queries about this and Collina admitted: “At a certain point of the group phase there were some incidents which disappeared.
“We had some holdings (of players) but in the following matches they either disappeared or, if they continued, were punished by the appropriate decisions and, if in the penalty area, a penalty kick. We noticed, intervened and fine-tuned. You were able to appreciate that something had changed.”
Though probably not “appreciated” by Spain’s centrebacks at the moment.
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