Video technology for game-changing incidents to be trialled in England – The Guardian

The referee Mike Dean tests goalline technology before a Premier League match. From next season there will also be video technology for game-changing incidents. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA

The use of video technology for game-changing incidents will be trialled in English football next season, almost certainly including the FA Cup from the third round, it has been confirmed, while next weekends FA Cup quarter-finals could feature a fourth substitution if they go to extra time.

A raft of new exploratory measures, including sin-bins, removing automatic yellow cards for players who give away penalty kicks and even a change in the order of penalty-taking in shootouts wereannounced at the annual general meeting of the International Football Association Board (Ifab), the games law-making body.

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, was also present at Wembley and confirmed that he hopes video assistant referees (Vars) will also be in place at next years World Cup in Russia.

The meeting was chaired by the FA, whose chief executive, Martin Glenn, said of the possible fourth substitution in this seasons FA Cup: With the Cup now adopting a straight knockout format, the introduction of a fourth substitute in extra time will bring extra intrigue and interest. From a technical point of view it will be interesting to see how managers use the chance to make an additional substitution in such high-profile games and the impact it has on the final result.

Glenn added of the initiatives generally: We see this as a sea change in our approach to the laws of the game. We are moving from a position of conservatism, of being nervous about any change of a desire to keep simplicity, to saying that technology is changing at a pace and that there is a need for experimentation in the game. Var was a major move. From being nervous we are now saying were going to do it. Across the world we are doing real testing, getting referees to work with video screens, to real-life match testing in the MLS. Weve made terrific progress and the game will improve on back of it. Subject to our being fully prepared and ready you can expect to see Vars from the third round of the FA Cup in the coming season.

Details of the Var plans remain unclear, with Glenn confirming that trials are still experimenting with a variety of models, including video referees working in a remote match centre. But there was general confidence that the schemes are working, with time taken to make decisions consistently reducing. The Vars will adjudicate on four criteria adjudged to have game-changing influence: red cards, goals, penalty kicks and cases of mistaken identity.

While not eliminating errors altogether, Infantino said, Vars would prove a real aid to referees. Vars are positive because they will allow that the right decision is taken in a game-changing circumstance, he said. It prevents the referee from making a clear mistake in an occasion where he wouldnt have seen it. It happens. Its happened in the last 150 years. With the help of Var, such a decision can be corrected. But it will not look at every single decision.

Meanwhile players will no longer in any circumstances receive a yellow card if they give away a penalty while making a genuine attempt to play the ball. Electronic devices will also be allowed in technical areas, for use when reviewing an incident that may have caused a player serious injury. Furthermore there will be trials that look to change the order in which penalties are taken in a shootout, with the conventional Team A, Team B order ABAB being replaced by ABBA.

The FA also announced it is to launch a six-figure inquiry into the potential link between heading a football and dementia in professional footballers.

Other decisions which Ifab has authorised will largely be implemented at the discretion of national FAs and at the grassroots level of the game. In leagues outside national top flights (eg from the Championship down) it will be possible to modify the number of substitutes allowed per game. Rolling, or return substitutions, can also be trialled at youth, grassroots and disability levels. The same will apply to sin-bin measures, removing a player from the field for a period of time in the event of them receiving a yellow card.