Football associations green light video referee experiment

Live experiments for video refereeing in Football will begin before 2018 with a view to implementing the technology in the top level of the game.

During the International Football Association Board’s (IFAB) 130th Annual General Meeting in Cardiff, the law-making body approved a set of protocols for the experiments and agreed they should be conducted for at least two years before full implementation.

Video technology will not be used for every decision, they agreed, but it will help with “game-changing” decisions such as goals, penalty decisions and red cards.

The experiments will be overseen by IFAB with the support of FIFA, and a university will be selected to conduct a research study. IFAB will meet with interested competition organisers and FIFA in the coming weeks to “define a schedule for the next 24 months”.

Both cricket and rugby use video technology during live games. The former calls on the Umpire Decision Review System to detect run-out, leg before wicket decisions and disputed catches, while the latter uses a video review system during televised games.

The meeting was also used to discuss increasing the number of substitutions a team can make if a match goes into extra time. IFAB agreed to experiment with a fourth substitution to see whether there is a player welfare benefit. Currently, teams are allowed to use only three substitutes in a game.