Video referees cramped rooms set for the test
krasnogorsk — Two cramped rooms in a Moscow suburb could make or break countries’ dreams of World Cup glory.
This World Cup tournament will be the first to use video reviews, standard practice in many other sports around the world, but an abomination to some football fans who see it as killing the game’s soul.
Deep in the bowels of Fifa’s International Broadcast Center, just outside the Moscow city limits, are two rooms decorated in blue-and-red World Cup branding. Along each wall are places for four Video Assistant Referees and 15 screens capable of showing 33 camera angles. It’s all ready for the first World Cup game to use the VAR system on Thursday when Russia plays Saudi Arabia.
Fifa hopes VAR will stop fans griping about biased, incompetent or corrupt referees — even though in the last two weeks, one Saudi referee was dropped from the World Cup after being banned for life in a corruption case, while a Kenyan assistant referee stepped down from World Cup duties after being filmed apparently accepting a cash payment.
“I don’t need to wait for VAR to guarantee people that referees are honest,” said Massimo Busacca, head of Fifa’s refereeing department, during a tour of the facilities Saturday. “Everyone watching the situation can even have another confirmation that the decision was correct, so they cannot complain any more. Believe me, even without VAR, we have to believe in what referees are doing.”
Referees, four to a game, will sit in office chairs along one wall with monitor operators trained to find the best camera angles for a disputed penalty or offside call. One is the chief Video Assistant Referee, making the final calls. He — all the World Cup officials are male — is backed up by one assistant specialising in offside, another who checks his colleagues’ work for errors, and one who keeps an eye on the live TV feed while the others are deliberating. —