In the press conference of the World Cup, the head of the International Federation of Association Football refereeing organization, known as the "bald detective" called the Italian former referee Golena, on the offside penalty standards of this tournament explained. He revealed that compared to the past, the offside penalty in this World Cup will be more rapid, but the content of the communication between the VAR (video assistant referee) and the referee will not be disclosed to the public.
The VAR system was put into use four years ago at the World Cup in Russia, and has achieved remarkable results, recalled Golena. However, local referees at that time were not fully prepared for it. Today, VAR has been introduced to many top tournaments and the process has become much easier. He added: "We are committed to improving our work and one of our goals is to reduce the waiting time required to award offside penalties. I think we have achieved this as this World Cup has adopted a semi-automatic offside detection system."
"The new system can significantly reduce the time it takes to determine offside as there is no longer a need to manually draw the line. The FIFA has been working full time on this technology and although the decision to award a penalty is not completely instantaneous, the speed will be improved. However, I must emphasize that the final decision on penalties is always in the hands of the referee."
On the question of whether to make the conversation between VAR and the referee public, similar to what is done in Formula One, Colonna said there are no plans to do so at the moment. He said, "We are aware that there is such a discussion, but it will not be done for the time being."
