A few days after French referee Stephanie Frappart blew the final whistle at the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019, FIFA reflected with satisfaction on the performance of the referees and how the implementation of Video assistant referee (VAR) had contributed to the resounding success of refereeing at the event.
The Chairman of FIFA’s Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina, highlighted the good work done by the FIFA Refereeing department and in particular Kari Seitz, the project leader at France 2019.
The implementation of VAR represented a huge talking point during the FIFA Women’s World Cup, generating an interesting debate about football and its rules.
“Enforcing the laws is the referees’ task and they cannot refrain from doing it. If laws exist, referees must enforce it - particularly when tools like VAR or GLT are available. This is what the match officials have done in France.”
FIFA will continue its efforts to improve and develop overall standards of refereeing and assist all member associations and leagues wishing to implement VAR in their competitions.