Pierluigi Collina, a legendary former referee, spoke at length in an interview yesterday with those at La Gazzetta dello Sport. He is now president of FIFA Referees Committee. He discussed VAR and its uses with the Italian newspaper. Here are his words, relayed by MilanPress.it:
"The introduction of the Var has undoubtedly contributed to making the football more just, preventing an error by the referee from negatively affecting the result of a match or competition. FIFA has always believed that the introduction of technology would bring positive results, even when others thought otherwise. They believed so to the point of deciding to use the Var at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, when there were still very few countries, Italy among them, that had introduced it. And given the results, never a decision was more appropriate."
Collina added:
"Obviously, in a game where a lot depends on the subjective interpretation, the differences of judgment and the consequent controversies remain. But certainly there are no more errors in the judgment of those episodes whose interpretation is unanimous. We are working to reduce these times and the introduction of “Semi Automated Offside Technology” at the next World Cup will allow us to make decisions that are not only faster but also more accurate. Then you will have to get used to some breaks, knowing however that the goal is to make a correct decision."
Collina concluded:
"In the beginning, when the new technology was introduced, no one could know for sure what would happen and, for example, how many interruptions there would be in a game. For the fear that they could be too many, and distort the game we were all used to, it was decided to intervene only in the case of "clear and obvious mistakes" and 'serious missed incidents'. Today, after six years, with the experience and quality achieved, we can think of making some considerations on the opportunity to modify something, providing for greater use, because an error is always an error."
