First written into the law of the game by the International Association Board IFAB, VAR was implemented as a way of highlighting clear and obvious errors and missed incidents. The VAR includes a team of selected Assistant Video Assistant Referees stationed in a video operation room, automatically checking every onfield head referee decision falling under the reviewable category. The team consists of current or former referees appointed to offer assistance to the VAR in the video operation room.
Since its introduction, VAR has significantly improved the decision making of the head referees.FIFA assessments confirm that the VAR system has a much better success rate of 99.3 % compared to the percentage of correct calls made by the referees without VAR which is 95%. FIFA world cup 2018 became the first international competition to highlight the effectiveness of VAR after being named FIFA 2018 Edition status for being the cleanest world cup since 1986 for no red card was given for the first ten games.Despite reports showing that VAR has been 98.9% accurate in decision making, FIFA assessments have noted that wrong decisions are being made despite VAR reviews, leaving even some decisions called incorrectly after they were not reviewed. Major stakeholders like club coaches, national coaches, and football analysts have rallied cries for VAR to either be abandoned or improved after showing signs of imperfections as FIFA has noted.
