The historical change that the VAR could undergo

Since before it began to be used, the VAR generated controversy. There're the fierce detractors who want to know nothing with the help of technology in football; and there're also those who defend him to the letter since they "bring justice" to the sport. And in the last hours, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) is ready to make a major change to "reassure" fans.

VAR arrived in football to bring greater justice to the game, as Gianni Infantino, FIFA president and main promoter of the technology, recognized on several occasions. Despite this, there are still those who criticize this system and argue, among other points, that it has deprived arbitration of transparency. Beyond the fact that many times the focus is on the delay time in making decisions or in the review of some actions, fans have always pointed out that the unknown about the dialogues that the referees have with the VAR booth are a trigger suspicions and this ends up being a weapon against the judges themselves and the federations.

Although there're confederations, such as Conmebol, and associations that publish conversations between those who administer justice in the parties days later, now the public could listen to those talks live. Mark Bullingham, executive director of the English Federation (FA) and member of the IFAB, said in statements published by The Sun site: “Through its technical panel, IFAB will analyze whether audio should be published in VAR communications. This's recognized to have helped other sports and also improved the fan experience. We'll see what the arguments are like on that and we haven't gone into details yet in a deadline. But we're talking about giving spectators access, on the pitch or at home, to the conversations between the referee and the VAR ”.

“It's useful for the fans and the referee, so it's something to be explored. It was initially asked more in the context of broadcasting the conversations on TV, but if you're going to do that, why wouldn't you explore Ref Link and those kinds of options? Conceptually, it's something that people thought would be worth exploring and we could definitely do it”, he insisted.