LONDON – It could take 10 years to perfect VAR, according to football’s lawmakers.
Lukas Brud, secretary of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), made the startling admission after another controversy-filled Premier League weekend.
On Saturday, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was seething after a late winner from Gabriel Jesus was overturned following a VAR check because of an unintentional handball in a 2-2 draw with Tottenham.
Brud believes the new handball rule – which makes any contact with the hand or arm in the build-up to a goal illegal – will improve consistency.
But he admitted VAR will take some bedding-in, with potentially a decade-long wait until it is flawless.
“Speaking to other sports, they said when they introduced video systems, it could take up to 10 years to perfect,” he said.
Brud is of the view that the outcry over VAR will die down, saying: “It will take time for people to get used to it, and that includes the officials.
“We saw this in other leagues such as Germany and Italy when VAR started there two years ago. There was the same kind of reaction.
“Now most fans in those countries just regard it as normal.”
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The handball rule has come in for criticism, but Brud remains behind it.
“The original driver of the change to the handball law was to create more consistency and to make it clearer and easier to understand when there was a handball, so there is less interpretation by the officials about whether it is or isn’t a handball,” he said.
“It should now be clear that if a goal is scored using a hand, or if it hits the hand of an attacker and leads to a goal being scored, then it is a handball offence, whether or not it was deliberate.”