The VAR protocol could be set to change again with news the IFAB will trial referees being able to announce and explain their decisions in the Club World Cup, but rejected a countdown clock experiment.
Video Assistant Referee technology is still in its early stages and the rules around it are being fine-tuned all the time to make it more manageable for the referees, players and fans at home.
There is already a change today in the Supercoppa Italiana, where semi-automatic offside technology will be used, then introduced in Serie A from next week.
In preparing for the Club World Cup next week, it was confirmed that referees will announce the reasons behind their VAR decisions to both the crowd in the stadium and therefore the audience at home using a microphone.
This is of course already commonplace in sports such as American Football and some have been calling for greater clarification from the officials after a match rather than during it.
The IFAB gave the go-ahead to trial this system, but drew the line at the experimentation of a countdown clock, which in Italy is generally referred to as Tempo Effettivo.
It would mean stopping the clock whenever the ball is out of play, ensuring that rather than give a vague amount of stoppages at the end of each half, a certain amount of football must be played.
Don’t like this. What language will the Referee speak during Internationals?