‘Iran to equip football stadiums with VAR soon’

Hamid Sajjadi made the remarks on Sunday while paying a visit to the Azadi sports complex, adding that the VAR technology is expected to be used in the Iran Professional League (IPL) next season.

The VAR technology was used in Qatar’s World Cup, where the new technology was a system designed to provide automated offside alerts to the video match officials team.

The International Football Association Board (The IFAB) unanimously approved the use of VAR at its 132nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) that took place at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich on March 3, 2018.

In the VAR system, a group of referees reviews the decisions of the head referee using video footage and headset communication.

According to IFAB website, the philosophy of VARs is ‘minimum interference – maximum benefit’ which aims to reduce unfairness caused by ‘clear and obvious errors’ or ‘serious missed incidents’ in relation to four incidents of goal/no goal, penalty/no penalty, direct red card (not 2nd yellow card/caution), and mistaken identity (when the referee cautions or sends off the wrong player of the offending team).

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