The Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) has given a more detailed explanation of their plan to implement the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in the Zambia Super League come next year.
FAZ President, Andrew Kamanga confirmed the Association’s plans to introduce the technology come next during his speech at the official opening of the ongoing FIFA Goalkeeping course currently taking place at Tecla in Lusaka.
Kamanga believes the introduction of VAR will reduce the number of complaints against match officiating in the MTN Super League.
“We also have identified technology as one area that needs a lot of investment and in that regard, we will be implementing the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) from next year because we have been working in the background to make sure that we do adopt these modern technologies. We believe that if we introduce the VAR particularly in our Super League it will go a long way in addressing the never-ending complaints against match officiating, so that is coming next year,” Kamanga said.
Since the news broke out a section of the Zambian football fans have come out with a lot of skepticism doubting the legitimacy of what the FAZ boss said.
However, FAZ Communications manager Sydney Mungala has now come out to shed more light on the proposed implementation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology.
In an exclusive interview with the ZamFoot Crew, Mungala said the World football governing body, FIFA is very willing to support the project under the contract of agreed objectives with any Member Association.
“Actually while most people think this idea is unattainable in our environment. It is one of the key areas that FIFA is willing to support under the contract of agreed objectives with any Member Association. The key is to be able to utilize funds as stipulated in the contract,” he said.
“Member Associations are free to request for FIFA support under different categories that can be infrastructure and ICT among others. An FA is only required to fulfill the conditions. With FAZ having been able to pass all the FIFA audits in the last few years it puts Zambia in a good position to apply for support for VAR. Zambia already has personnel like Janny Sikazwe and Diana Chikotesha exposed to that technology at a high level so we are already in a good position.”
VAR stands for video assistant referee. Instead of just one person, a team of three people works together to review decisions made by the main referee. They do this by watching video footage of the relevant occurrences. The team is made up of the main video assistant referee, who is typically a current or former referee, his assistant, and a replay operator. They are located in a video operation room that contains various monitors showing different camera angles.
VAR can be used to review four types of decision: goals and the violations that precede them, red cards, penalties, and mistaken identity when awarding a card. In some cases, a decision made by the main referee can be overturned; however, it must be a “clear error” for this to happen.
Typically, the process for reviewing a decision works in one of two ways: either the VAR team can recommend a review, or the main referee can request a review after making a decision. In the former situation, if the VAR decides that a clear error has been made, he or she must notify the main referee.
Once this has happened, the referee has three options: he can immediately overturn the decision based on the VAR’s advice, stick with their initial decision, or review the incident themselves on a monitor on the side of the pitch.
