PREMIER LEAGUE refs have been given a three-replay limit on VAR decisions in a bid to avoid lengthy lime delays that threaten to ruin football.
Video refs will be in place for all top flight matches this season, starting with Sunday’s Community Shield clash between Manchester City and Liverpool.
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But bosses are determined the technology will not cause matches to overrun by as much as ten minutes, which was seen as the Women’s World Cup was blighted by delays.
It has emerged one ref in the competition over the summer watched 29 replays of an incident before making a decision – holding up play for over four-and-a-half minutes.
That has led to those in charge of the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd to issue guidelines to their officials to keep their analysis short this season.
Each time a VAR is used the official will watch the incident three times at full speed first to gain a perspective of what happened in real time.
If they believe something needs greater scrutiny they can then zoom in on slow motion – but only three times.
It is the belief of PGMOL bosses that if a VAR cannot spot something wrong after this time then there is not a clear an obvious error, so they should then let play continue without overruling any decision.
Television monitors will be on hand at each game for the on-pitch ref to review incidents, but they are only going to be used for offences they have not spotted.
This means if they award a penalty, and it is overruled by VAR, they will accept the decision coming through on their earpiece and will not need to look at the replays themselves.
Data collated by the PGMOL says each time a ref has used the pitch-side monitor, it has taken an average of 90 seconds before play is restarted.
By minimising the use of that, the Premier League and PGMOL believe they can limit the disruption to the natural flow of the game.
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