The FA want to trial a “coach’s challenge” system for VAR, in the hope that it would reduce the delays the system currently introduces to the game.
Martyn Ziegler reports for The Times that the FA are in favour of trialling a system where each team would get two opportunities each match to challenge a referee’s decision. The team would keep their two challenges when they are successful, but they’d lose one by challenging a correct call.
This is similar to the system currently used in other sports, but not extensively tested in top-tier football. The lower leagues in Spain and Italy do use a challenge system, but not La Liga or Serie A.
The International Football Association Board are holding a two-year review of VAR, and the FA will push for a trial of challenges as part of that review.
On the surface, this change probably sounds like it would add even more time wastage to the Premier League. But it’s worth noting that the plan would be for the challenge system to replace the current system of checking every single incident.
VAR’s role would effectively be reduced to solely checking factual decisions, such as offsides, but not subjective decisions like fouls and handballs. VAR would only intervene in those cases if the manager called on them to do so.
In theory, that could reduce the amount of time spent on reviews, but it also comes with the risk that a coach might miss a major error made by the referee, or that a big mistake might be made after the coach had already used up their two challenges on other incidents.
In those cases, the VAR official might be well aware of the mistake, but unable to alert the referee.
It’s certainly a system that would need some testing to determine whether or not it would achieve its goals, and whether it would be worth the mistakes it might unintentionally add back into the sport.