Abstract
There are two significant innovations in soccer refereeing in the last decade. The history behind the approval of the goal-line technology and the video assistant referee allows the reader to understand the intrinsic difficulties in implementing new technologies in the conservative world of soccer. This chapter also reviews the relevant literature about the impact that the VAR has had on the sport. A thorough review of FIFA’s official experiment to determine the validity of soccer gives way to recent papers showing that the VAR tends to reduce fouls and offside while increasing the minutes played.
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Notes
- 1.
Page 9 of the Minutes of the 2008 Annual General Meeting of the International Football Association Board available at https://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/documents/816/131001_070819_2008_IFAB_AGM_Minutes.pdf, visited April 12, 2021.
- 2.
Page 15 of the Minutes of the 2010 Annual General Meeting of the International Football Association Board available at https://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/documents/821/133133_070819_2010_IFAB_AGM_Minutes.pdf, visited April 12, 2021.
- 3.
Page 13 of the Minutes of the 2015 Annual General Meeting of the International Football Association Board available at https://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/documents/222/121321_240217_2015min.pdf, visited April 12, 2021.
- 4.
This information on the VAR operation during Russia 2018 was retrieved from FIFA´s official website: https://football-technology.fifa.com/en/innovations/var-at-the-world-cup/, visited April 14, 2021.
- 5.
The information is available at https://football-technology.fifa.com/en/innovations/var-at-the-womens-world-cup/, visited April 14, 2021.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
http://hemeroteca.mundodeportivo.com/preview/1990/07/09/pagina-4/1221555/pdf.html, visited April 15, 2021.
- 9.
Idem.
- 10.
https://elpais.com/diario/2006/06/15/deportes/1150322419_850215.html, visited April 15, 2021.
- 11.
https://twitter.com/gabihcalderon/status/1259839341473529858/, visited April 15, 2021.
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Tovar, J. (2021). The Debate of VAR. In: On Fairness, Justice, and VAR. Palgrave Pivots in Sports Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84814-9_3
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