The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is set to introduce a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) for the first time in a CAF Super Cup match in Morocco.
VAR, introduced at the start of 2017-18 season, across the major leagues, saw its latest contributions in England’s domestic cups. Though not free from criticism, it showed its potential in keeping the game clean.
CAF has announced to use the technology in the super cup match which will feature Morocco’s Wyda Casablanca and TP Mazemebe of DR Congo, which were the winners of the African Champions League and the second tier Confederation Cup.
According to a report from the BBC Sport, VAR was supposed to be introduced during African Nations Championship quarterfinals in Morocco last month but, trial sessions on the machine were held instead. VAR is a technology which can review four things during a football match such as: goals and whether there was a violation during the buildup of play, penalty decisions, red card decision and mistaken identity in awarding yellow or red card.
VAR is not currently part of the law of the game. However, FIFA will decide next month whether to use it for the 2018 World Cup scheduled to take place in Russia. The standard of overturning the referee’s original decision is that there has been a “clear and obvious error.”
The process begins with video assistant referees and the assistant referee (AVAR) reviewing the play in question on a bank of monitors in the video operation room (ROM) with the assistance of the replay operator (RO).
