Serie A refereeing designator Gianluca Rocchi reveals a new stage of VAR protocol is being worked on by FIFA and he felt a ‘weight taken off my shoulders’ when using the technology for the first time.
While in England there was a vote to ban the use of VAR in the Premier League, although only Wolverhampton Wanderers were in favour of scrapping the technique altogether, in Italy the debate continues to be very different.
There, the complaints are based on why VAR cannot be used more often, allowing coaches to ‘request’ a VAR On-Field Review without waiting for the officials to highlight it as a ‘clear and obvious error’ first.
“Next season there will be modifications to the rules, but nothing major, it’s mainly about the interpretation of handball in the penalty area,” said Rocchi during the Festival della Serie A in Parma.
“We are evaluating VAR on call for the youth teams, but it is still a project in the embryonic stage that FIFA are working on. It doesn’t involve professional football yet.”
VAR had a bumpy road
The Video Assistant Referee is now an integral part of the sport, although Rocchi admits that when he was still a referee on the pitch, he had his misgivings too.
“When I first found out it was being introduced, I was not happy, seeing as it irritated me to be told I’d made a mistake after the match, let alone during the game. However, the first time I went to the VAR monitor to correct a decision, I felt a weight had been taken off my shoulders. It was liberating to know I would not be responsible for affecting the result.
“Now I get angry if younger referees complain about the technology and do not fully understand the advantages of it. I wish I’d had that for the other 13 years of my career.”
Another reason why the technology is more popular in Italy than in England is that the various television channels go to great lengths to fully explain the protocol and the decision-making process.
This can be done with former referees as pundits, but also from this season in the DAZN programme Open VAR, where the actual footage and audio from the officials is aired.
A current figure from the refereeing community, often designator Rocchi himself, then explains why those decisions were made and if there was an error.
“Open VAR allowed us referees to open up our world. It was a positive experience that involved hard work, but the referees were ready to show the reality of that intimate dialogue between referee and his Video Assistant Referee.”