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Video refereeing in A-League delayed as FIFA officials take experiment behind closed doors

PLANS to introduce video refereeing into the A-League next season look certain to be delayed, after the FIFA officials overseeing the global experiment ordered its first stage to be kept under wraps.

Football Federation Australia is one of 15 bodies around the world that has volunteered to trial the video referral system that FIFA will examine, and it had been expected to go live in time for October when the new season starts.

But at a workshop this week in Europe, the various competitions involved — including the English Premier League, and the Dutch and Italian leagues — were told that its initial implementation will be in a so-called “offline” format from August, and that it’s roll out for use in competitions will take more than a year.

Under the “offline” trials, an extra referee will be positioned in the stadium with access to multiple instant replays, and be able to review contentious incidents immediately, but won’t make any contact with the main match referee on the pitch. Effectively it will be a testing of the system without affecting the course of a game.

From October “live” trials will be allowed but only in friendly games, ruling out its introduction in the next A-League season. In those live trials, the video referee will alert the main referee to any decision that might appear wrong.

Under FIFA’s plan, only decisions relating to goals, direct red cards and penalties could be reviewed, and would have to be within 15 seconds. The video referee would confer with the main referee via the same secure radio link as the assistant referees use, but the final decision would still rest with the man in the middle.

FIFA does not intend to introduce live trials in competitions until June next year, meaning even next season’s finals won’t be able to have video referees, although it’s believed some international games may be selected for live trials before then.

The use of an extra pair of eyes with access to technology is seen by FFA as the most cost-effective way of reducing the number of wrong calls in major decisions with the capacity to affect the course of a game.

Goalline technology is prohibitively expensive and solves only one contentious issue, while the use of extra officials behind the goal in last season’s A-League finals — as also happens in the UEFA Champions League — was not seen as making a radical difference to decision making by the main referee.

A strict protocol will have to be followed by FFA in terms of training of match officials, their deployment in games and testing of facilities at stadiums before FIFA will consider allowing the use of video referrals in competition matches.