The International Football Federation continues to work on improving the technical support of the game.
The FIFA Working Group met again to agree on the next steps in the development of VAR technology.
The development of the VAR light concept, which aims to create more affordable VAR systems that can be used at all levels of play, was discussed via videoconference. The working group identified the variable cost factors, the potential quality degradation and the minimum requirements for such a technology setup. In addition, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the French Football Association (FFF) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) provided the working group with their results of offline tests with more cost-effective VAR technology.
Based on the discussions and the results of the studies and tests, recommendations will now be submitted to FIFA and IFAB on the next steps for the implementation of the light VAR concept.
Also discussed was the development of semi-automated offside fixing technology, which will help make the incident review process as efficient as possible. Three vendors are already developing software, but testing of the new technology had to be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, semi-automatic offside fixing has been agreed to be tested next year.
It is expected that the innovation will be recommended for use as early as 2022. FIFA plan to catch up with the start of the next World Cup.
Recall that Lucescu said at the post-match press conference that he was an opponent of VAR technology, that it has no place in soccer.