Arsenal and Liverpool will be among the teams used during a VAR trial in 2025 which will see referees announce any VAR decisions to football supporters inside stadiums in England.
VAR has been a big topic of discussion in England ever since it was implemented ahead of the 2019/20 Premier League campaign.
There were several issues during its first season with the directive to only use it to correct clear and obvious errors causing major annoyance to fans. Other problems have popped up in the time since but one that has always remained is fans in the stadium being left in the dark when a VAR check is ongoing – especially in stadiums that do not have a big screen.
In order to create more transparency between the officials on the field of play and supporters in the stands, the EFL have decided that referees will announce their final decisions following a visit to the VAR pitchside monitor during the Carabao Cup semi-finals at the start of 2025, reports the BBC.
This is the first time it will be trialled in England after proving successful during the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Both legs of the Carabao Cup semi-finals will be used in the trial, which includes Arsenal vs Newcastle and Tottenham vs Liverpool. The first legs of the EFL-run competition will be played on 7 and 8 January 2025, with the return fixtures on 5 and 6 February – with Reds defender Joe Gomez now set to miss the first of these games.
It is hard to gauge whether this trial will be a success but more transparency between fans and the officials is unlikely to be a bad thing.
Announcing decisions to the supporters in the stadium has worked fantastically in other sports leagues such as the NFL and it may help fans to understand how hard it is to make decisions as the man in the middle.
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This trial could be a huge moment for the future of English football and it could change the way people view VAR in the country.
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