VAR is an addition to the game that is dividing opinion. The concerns before introducing it in football were mainly around how much it would delay games and break up the flow of the game. Now the Brazilian Football Confederation is asking FIFA to explain whether the system was used to determine the outcome of two major decisions during their game against Switzerland, where they were held to a 1-1 draw.
Brazil question two big decisions in the match
One decision was regarding an incident where they felt their defender Miranda was pushed, helping Switzerland to score their equaliser. They also believed that they should have received a penalty for a foul on Gabriel Jesus. Brazil have even requested that they are provided with video and audio recordings to review the incidents and the VAR communications for themselves.
VAR teething problems in its first ever World Cup
The use of VAR will probably be a highly contentious subject throughout this World Cup as it is still in the early stages of being used, with this being the first World Cup tournament that it has been used.
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England also suffered some dubious decision-making by the referee
England’s game against Tunisia threw up some equally dubious questions about the use of VAR, with England fans claiming that Tunisia’s penalty was a bad decision. Also, it looked as through Harry Kane was subjected to a number of illegal challenges in the box that should have lead to at least one penalty for England.
When you compare the challenges to the one that Walker conceded a penalty for, the use of VAR would appear to have not done its job in this match. Fortunately for England, they were able to score a late winner as Harry Kane eventually escaped the stranglehold of his marker to head the ball into the back of the net.