When was VAR first used in an official match?

A Dutch cup tie between Ajax and Willem II on 21 September 2016, in which a yellow card was upgraded to a red. A friendly between PSV and FC Eindhoven in July 2016 had served as a live trial beforehand.

Can the referee ignore the VAR's advice?

Yes. The referee can reject the recommendation and keep the original call, because the final decision always rests with the official on the pitch.

Who is part of the VAR team?

The VAR works with three assistant video assistant referees, covering the main camera, the offside station and the television feed, plus three replay operators. The VAR position is held by a qualified referee, current or former.

Can players be punished for protesting a VAR decision?

Yes. Excessively protesting by making the TV-screen gesture, or entering the referee review area, brings a caution, and entering the video operation room results in a sending-off.

What Is VAR in Soccer? How Video Review Works

Q: Where do Premier League and MLS video officials sit?

Premier League video officials work from Stockley Park in London, the German Football Association operates from Cologne-Deutz, and Major League Soccer runs reviews from a center in Atlanta opened for the 2022 season.

What VAR Means in Soccer

In soccer, VAR stands for video assistant referee, a match official who supports the referee by studying video footage of incidents and offering advice based on what the replays show. On 3 March 2018, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) wrote VAR permanently into the rulebook, the Laws of the Game, after trials across major competitions. The system's guiding principle is to intervene as little as possible while delivering the greatest benefit, correcting evident mistakes and serious incidents the officials on the pitch missed.

The VAR heads a larger crew. Three assistant video assistant referees (AVARs) divide the workload: one tracks the main camera for glaring offences, another works the offside station, and a third follows the television feed while relaying messages. Three replay operators complete the team by finding the camera angles that capture each incident best. The VAR position is always held by a qualified referee, whether still officiating or not.

Which Decisions VAR Can Review

Video review is limited to four types of rulings. Goals, penalties, straight red cards and cases of mistaken identity are the only decisions the video team may examine. Each category carries its own checklist of what can be looked at.

Goal checks can involve an offence by the attacking side, the ball having gone out of play, offside, handball, and fouls or encroachment on penalty kicks. Penalty checks cover attacking-team offences, the ball being dead, where an offence occurred, spot kicks wrongly given, and offences that went unpunished.

Red-card reviews apply to denying an obvious chance to score, serious foul play, violent conduct such as biting or spitting, and offensive, insulting or abusive words or gestures. Mistaken identity is the final category and covers both red and yellow cards.

How a VAR Check Works

The video crew automatically examines every on-field ruling that falls inside those four categories. When the call looks correct, the VAR may run a "silent check," telling the referee the decision stands without delaying the match. When a possible mistake needs closer study, the referee can hold the restart and signals an ongoing check by touching a hand to the ear.

If the VAR spots a likely error, three outcomes are possible. The referee can overturn the call on the VAR's advice, go to a pitchside monitor for an on-field review (OFR), or set the advice aside entirely.

The route depends on the type of question. Factual matters, such as offside or whether an offence happened inside the penalty area or beyond it, can be reversed on the VAR's information alone. Judgment calls, like whether a foul occurred at all or whether an offence merits a red card, lead to an OFR. In every case the referee makes the final decision, and the original call only changes when the video plainly shows a clear and obvious error.

How an On-Field Review (OFR) Works

An OFR takes place only when the VAR recommends one, which keeps the referee ruling from the field instead of visiting a screen for every tight call. Reviews happen while the ball is out of play or after the referee stops play expressly to conduct one. The referee announces it by drawing the outline of a television screen in the air.

The review occurs in a referee review area (RRA) beside the pitch, kept in view of the crowd for openness. As the referee watches, the VAR sends a series of replays from several camera angles. Slow-motion footage is reserved for pinpointing where contact occurred in physical offences and handball cases, while full-speed footage is used to judge the intensity of an offence or whether a handball happened at all.

Once the review ends, the referee repeats the TV gesture and then announces the ruling. If the ball was already out of play, play resumes under the original decision or the new one. If play was stopped just for the review and the call stands, the restart is a dropped ball.

When VAR Was Introduced

The concept traces to the Refereeing 2.0 project run by the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) in the early 2010s, which tested the idea in dry runs during Eredivisie matches in the 2012–13 season before asking IFAB in 2014 to permit wider trials. IFAB signed off on trials and a path to full rollout at its 2016 meeting. An even earlier one-off came in 2006, when Yemeni referee Ahmed Qaid Saif consulted a pitchside monitor over a disputed goal in a match between Al-Tilal and Al-Saqr in Aden.

A friendly between PSV and FC Eindhoven in July 2016 served as the system's first live trial. The first official use came in a Dutch cup tie between Ajax and Willem II on 21 September 2016, where a yellow card was upgraded to red for the first VAR-based sending-off in a professional game. Australia's A-League became the first top-level club competition to use the system on 7 April 2017. Major League Soccer brought it into competitive matches on 2 August 2017, the Bundesliga and Serie A adopted it for 2017–18, La Liga for 2018–19, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia marked its debut on the global stage.

Criticisms of VAR

Delays are a built-in cost of the system, since some checks hold up the match while the video team determines whether a mistake occurred. Communication failures also marked the earliest uses. At that first official match in 2016, television viewers understood the changed decision, but supporters inside the ground, and to a smaller degree the players, could not tell what had been decided.

The lesson drawn from the Ajax–Willem II episode was that video rulings must be explained clearly to players, spectators and television audiences. Doubts about the technology's value surfaced early as well: VAR earned praise at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, yet a refereeing decision in the final match left its usefulness in question.

Where VAR Teams Work and the Cameras They Use

Video officials often sit in a room inside the stadium, but several competitions have centralized the operation. The English Premier League keeps its video officials at Stockley Park in London, the German Football Association operates from Cologne-Deutz, and Major League Soccer opened a Video Review Center in Atlanta for the 2022 season.

The equipment list totals 42 cameras. It includes slow-motion and ultra-slow-motion models, the units tied to offside technology, and every FIFA host broadcaster feed, giving the video team the sharpest available view of each play.