{"id":929873,"date":"2026-07-12T12:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929873\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T12:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:57:24","slug":"how-var-became-the-2026-world-cups-biggest-villain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929873\/","title":{"rendered":"How VAR became the 2026 World Cup’s biggest villain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Croatia\u2019s World Cup<\/a> was seconds away from being over and Portugal was seconds away from the round of 16 when Ivan Perisic sent a long, desperate cross into the penalty area. The ball bounced off bodies like a pinball before magically, unbelievably, caroming into the net.<\/p>\n

Gooooooallllllll!!!!<\/p>\n

Fate had given Croatia a reprieve. <\/p>\n

But as pandemonium broke out in the stands and on the pitch, Norwegian referee Espen Eskas stood in the middle of the celebration in Toronto, hand to his ear, listening to a voice half a continent away in Dallas. <\/p>\n

The voice recommended a review, via the video assistant referee, or VAR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So Eskas trotted over to a TV monitor, watched a video replay over and over again, and more than 2\u00bd minutes after the goal was recorded, he took it off the board. Perisic\u2019s cross had brushed the hair of teammate Igor Matanovic, leaving Mario Pasalic in an offside position when the ball reached him near the far post. The contact was imperceptible to the naked eye, but a space-age sensor in the ball had confirmed it.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A VAR review led a referee to overturn a Croatia goal during its 2-1 World Cup loss to Portugal in Toronto, eliminating Croatia from the tournament.<\/p>\n

(Dan Mullan \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Croatia\u2019s World Cup was over, another victim of VAR, which has had an outsized influence on this summer\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t supposed to be this way. When VAR was introduced to soccer nine years ago, its mission was clear: to alert the head referee to potential clear and obvious errors or serious missed incidents. At least that\u2019s what Major League Soccer, one of the first leagues to use the system, wrote in the news release introducing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really to stop the headlines,\u201d said Mark Geiger, who helped implement VAR as an MLS referee. \u201cThese super-egregious errors in a game that impact the outcome. The mantra for VAR was always minimum interference but maximum benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the VAR system, officials sitting before a bank of monitors in a centralized control room review match footage in real time and advise the on-field referee of potential errors. If the video assistant referees believe a mistake has been made, they communicate that through an earpiece the match referee is wearing. If the match official agrees, they will stop play, signal a review by motioning their hands in the shape of a rectangular TV screen, then watch the play themselves on a pitch-side monitor before either confirming or reversing the original decision.<\/p>\n

It is comparable to the Automated Ball-Strike review added this year in Major League Baseball, tennis\u2019 Hawk-Eye line-calling system and long-standing centralized instant replay review in the National Football League and National Basketball Assn., systems that have both corrected errors and stoked debate.<\/p>\n

But VAR has morphed into something far greater. In this World Cup, there have been more than 100 VAR interventions, encompassing both confirmed on-field calls and overturned decisions, through the end of the round of 16, according to Antonio Vuksanovic, a publication relations and communications professional at Sofascore, a Croatian technology company and sports statistics website.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to actual overturned decisions, we\u2019re looking at roughly 0.5 per match, which is higher than the last World Cup and higher than what we saw across the most recently completed club season,\u201d Vuksanovic said.<\/p>\n

Even though the officials have gotten most of those calls right, many of the infractions reviewed have been so imperceptible yet so consequential, it has raised a question: if human error on the part of players and coaches is part of the sport, is allowing a game to be decided by electronic evidence of a touch detectable only through NASA-level technology violating the spirit of the game?<\/p>\n

\"Iran's <\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Shoja Khalilzadeh shoots past Egypt\u2019s Mostafa Shobeir, but the goal was overturned after VAR review during a World Cup match in Seattle on June 26.<\/p>\n

(Maddy Grassy \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Christina Unkel, a former FIFA referee, state referee administrator in Florida and a rules of the game analyst for multiple TV networks, believes it does.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is an art. And that\u2019s why we love it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt truly isn\u2019t the referee\u2019s fault. We\u2019re not the ones seeking more advanced technology. We don\u2019t want to look like robots out there. But the stakeholders are like \u2018more, more, more.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do pursue black and white \u2014 objectivity is what they\u2019re trying to get to, and I get it; they want to eliminate as much subjectivity as possible \u2014 what everyone is hating is this perfection thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

FIFA, the major stakeholder in the World Cup, declined multiple requests to answer questions about the officiating, but it has clearly doubled down on the technology for this tournament, introducing the semi-automated offside system which uses player-tracking cameras, computer-generated offside lines and, in some cases, data from a measuring instrument inside the match ball, to identify everyone\u2019s position on the pitch when the ball is played.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole genesis of VAR was not to fix every mistake or to make the referees perfect,\u201d said Geiger, the first American to officiate a World Cup knockout game and now general manager of the Professional Referees Organization (PRO), which oversees referees for MLS and the NWSL. \u201cIs the referee correct? That\u2019s not the right question. They should be asking themselves, \u2018is the referee clearly and obviously wrong?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Geiger, however, remains a huge proponent of the system and was careful not to criticize how it\u2019s been used in this World Cup.<\/p>\n

\"Belgium's <\/p>\n

Belgium\u2019s Youri Tielemans on a penalty kick that sails by Senegal goalkeeper Mory Diaw during a World Cup round of 32 match in Seattle on July 1. The game-deciding penalty kick was awarded after VAR review.<\/p>\n

(Manu Fernandez \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Still, the frequent use of VAR and other technologies has clearly robbed the World Cup of much as its drama, with spontaneous celebrations of game-winning goals turning to grief moments later when the referee steps away from the monitor and takes away a score. <\/p>\n

Reviews not only ended Croatia\u2019s tournament, but they showed Shoja Khalilzadeh was a toe offside when he scored the goal that would have sent Iran to the knockout stages, one of three goals Iran had disallowed by VAR in the tournament; it gave Belgium a late penalty, based on light contact, that Youri Tielemans converted to end Senegal\u2019s World Cup; and it cost Egypt a goal for a perceived foul that took place nearly 100 yards away from the ball in its 3-2 loss to Argentina.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to us wasn\u2019t fair,\u201d Egypt coach Hossam Hassan said.<\/p>\n

Unkel agreed with that sentiment too.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone hates it,\u201d she said. \u201cAccording to VAR, that\u2019s correct to take that goal away. That\u2019s not the spirit of the game. But it\u2019s the correct decision by law.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Unkel would prefer \u2014 and she believes a majority of officials are on her side \u2014 is for referees to have discretion to ignore or even overrule VAR if common sense and their understanding of the game suggest they should, just as judges have discretion to use common sense in applying the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our game, the majority of it, is very subjective,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we\u2019re all sitting there saying, \u2018No, that doesn\u2019t gain an unfair advantage,\u2019 then that\u2019s when we have to start reconsidering things back to the spirit of the law. That\u2019s the catchall loophole for saying, \u2018Do we want this to be part of our game?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think everyone\u2019s universally saying there a lot of different kinds of decisions we do not want part of our game. Toenail offsides, hair follicle arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without the use of video replays, its unlikely any of those calls would have been made and the World Cup quarterfinals would probably look quite different.<\/p>\n

\"England <\/p>\n

England players react as referee Alireza Faghani shows a red card to England\u2019s Jarell Quansah during a World Cup match against Mexico on July 5.<\/p>\n

(Natacha Pisarenko \/ Ap Photo\/natacha Pisarenko)<\/p>\n

England coach Thomas Tuchel, upset about a penalty call on captain Harry Kane and a red card given to defender Jarell Quansah, both following video reviews in his team\u2019s round-of-16 win over Mexico, said rulings were being overturned in the tournament \u201cin a very questionable way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe referees can send any team out in any moment,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s just not good enough. It\u2019s just erratic. It\u2019s just unreliable.\u201d<\/p>\n

An apparent misuse of the technology also led to the most controversial incident in the tournament. In the second half of an elimination game between the U.S. and Bosnia-Herzegovina, American Folarin Balogun stomped on the ankle of Bosnia\u2019s Tarik Muharemovic, something Brazilian referee Raphael Claus initially decided did not merit even a caution. But after VAR official Juan Soto of Venezuela urged him to watch a replay, Claus flashed a red card at Balogun, expelling him from the game and banning him from the next match in the round of 16.<\/p>\n

Claus had watched the replay in slow motion, allowing him to see what wasn\u2019t apparent at game speed. FIFA later intervened by lifting Balogun\u2019s one-game suspension, igniting ever greater controversy because it was just the second time that has happened in a World Cup.<\/p>\n

\"U.S. <\/p>\n

U.S. forward Folarin Balogun steps on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic\u2019s foot and received a red card after VAR review during the World Cup.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The heavy use of VAR has also interrupted the flow of games by halting matches that weren\u2019t meant to be halted, leaving everyone standing on the field while the referee goes off to watch TV, sometimes for minutes at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen calls are reviewed and when goals are reviewed, sometimes it could take away from the momentum,\u201d U.S. defender Chris Richards said. \u201cLook under anything with a microscope, you could probably find something. But ultimately it was meant to be helpful for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it has been. Because if officials have become over-reliant on VAR to review decisions that were not, or could not, be seen in real time, at least they\u2019re getting those decisions right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish we had it in the 2002 World Cup,\u201d said Bruce Arena, who coached the U.S. in that tournament. \u201cWe might have made it to the semifinals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the quarterfinals of that tournament, with Germany leading 1-0 in the 40th minute, an obvious handball by Germany\u2019s Torsten Frings kept out a shot from American Gregg Berhalter. If VAR had been available, Scottish referee Hugh Dallas could have corrected the missed call, awarding a penalty and giving Frings a red card, expelling him for the final 40 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at every sport now in the world,\u201d said Arena, coach of the San Jos\u00e9 Earthquakes. \u201cThey have some version of VAR. Why not make decisions correct?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still plenty of opportunities for the referees to control the game and make mistakes and not make mistakes,\u201d he continued in reference to the human element. \u201cIt\u2019s not like every moment is evaluated. But key moments are.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for interrupting the flow of play, Arena says the three-minute hydration breaks FIFA has introduced each half \u2014 ostensibly for player welfare, but in practice to give the TV networks additional commercial breaks \u2014 have been more disruptive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want VAR to officiate the game completely,\u201d Arena said. \u201cYou have to pick your spots. For the most part, I think VAR is good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Croatia\u2019s World Cup was seconds away from being over and Portugal was seconds away from the round of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":929874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[20698,1582,276,32868,283,1910,42155,375011,2961,224,5337,110808,1408,375012,5996,2290,443,1443,128517,21490],"class_list":["post-929873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ball","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-croatia","tag-decision","tag-game","tag-goal","tag-head-referee","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-monitor","tag-official","tag-on-field-call","tag-part","tag-review","tag-system","tag-tournament","tag-var","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116907125692192312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}