For every football (aka soccer) fan, it doesn’t get any bigger than the FIFA World Cup. Every four years since 1930, the tournament has been held in different parts of the globe, and honestly, it hasn’t changed much. There was the expansion to include 32 teams in 1998, but the game’s rules have rarely been altered — largely because of FIFA’s unwillingness to embrace emerging technologies. But the 2018 edition in Russia, which ended Sunday with France’s win over Croatia, was different. For the first time ever, FIFA used the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) at its flagship competition. And the tech, for better or worse (depending on which team you cheered on), certainly made a mark.
There were 29 penalty kicks called at the World Cup 2018, 16 more than at the previous tournament in Brazil. Of those — VAR, which lets referees use video to review questionable plays — helped officials make a decision 11 times. Even if VAR wasn’t called upon to review every one of the penalty kicks, the fact that they more than doubled from Brazil 2014 shows the impact the tech has already had.
Any way you look at it, VAR provides a safety net for referees that they never had before. If a referee doesn’t give a penalty kick that should’ve been, because of a legitimate foul, the officials in charge of the video feed can now alert him of his mistake and help reverse the call. The same goes if he gives a penalty incorrectly — that’s a luxury that simply didn’t exist before. VAR lets referees fix their mistakes, which is great for the sport and its fans, like myself, who are tired of seeing their team being on the receiving end of a bad call. You can tell by the number of penalty kicks awarded in Russia that referees weren’t afraid to blow the whistle, knowing that they had VAR either there to save (or expose) them.
While FIFA implemented VAR to avoid controversies, the system will always be controversial. There were moments in the 2018 World Cup, for example, were VAR was clearly needed but the ref ultimately decided against using it. In Brazil vs. Belgium during the Quarter Finals, there was a clear foul in the goalkeeper’s box that could’ve been reviewed. Had VAR been used in that play, Brazil likely would’ve had a penalty kick in their favor. But there were also times when VAR saved the day, including during the Final, when the referee missed a handball but then overturned the call after consulting the system.