Uefa referees’ chief Roberto Rosetti has called for a change in the use of the video assistant referee (VAR) in European football.
The Italian had a meeting with senior officials from each of the top five European leagues — The Premier League, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga ahead of the new season.
And, as he announced the launch of Clear Line, a video portal for fans highlighting when VAR should and should not be used, he spoke specifically on the subject of VAR and its inconsistencies across European football.
Rosetti told the BBC: “We realise that everywhere now there is not any satisfaction about how VAR is impacting football.
“So we want to avoid microscopic situations. The context is super important. It’s football, not PlayStation. We need to be very, very careful.
Probably the biggest discrepancy in how the laws are applied across Europe comes with handballs.
Rosetti accepted that football would always be refereed differently across the continent due to different interpretations but believes it is hugely important that at least all the leagues were singing from the same hymn sheet.
“The idea is to be more consistent in the application of the laws,” Rosetti said.
“The perception about handball in England is different.
“Football is not perfect, and sometimes we will continue to have similar situations interpreted in different ways but at least we are working together.”
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VAR has been an almost constant source of contention since its inception in August 2019 in the Premier League.
And even now, as the new season nears, seven years after VAR first came into the English top flight, there is still a lot of dissatisfaction with its use.
Rosetti is aware of that and wants to make sure it returns to what it was originally intended for — namechecking the Diego Maradona Hand of God goal from the 1986 World Cup.
“We like referees with personality, taking decisions on the pitch, and VAR intervening only for clear and obvious situations,” he said.
“So clear images without too many replays. It is something that for us is very important.
“We were seeing that some on-field reviews were not connected with football. It’s about normal speed, context. It’s about football.”
Rosetti and UEFA came up with the plan to implement Clear Line as a way for fans to have somewhere to go to check if VAR had been used correctly.
“We started to think how we could help everyone to understand VAR better,” he said.
“It’s a library, a structure, a document where we explain when [and] how VAR will intervene.
“This is not a web page for referees. This is the space that you would go to after a Champions League match to check how an incident compares with this library.
“It’s for the clubs, for the players, for the fans.”
