Roberto Rosetti, Uefa’s managing director for refereeing, has warned that video assistant refereeing (VAR) is becoming too “microscopic,” straying from its intended purpose of correcting only clear and obvious mistakes. Speaking after Uefa’s annual congress in Brussels, Rosetti expressed concern that the technology is being overused across football.
“We forgot a little bit, everywhere,” Rosetti said. “Eight years ago, we spoke about clear mistakes, because technology works so well in factual decisions… Subjective evaluation is more difficult. That’s why we started to speak about clear and obvious mistakes. We cannot go in this direction of microscopic VAR intervention. We love football like it is.”
Rosetti criticised the overuse of slow-motion replays, which he said can make minor offences appear worse than they are. “We call this moviola… When you are watching the situation with the super-slow motion, you can find a lot of things.” He noted that while the Premier League has the lowest VAR intervention rate in Europe (0.15 per match for on-field reviews), it is often accused of being overly pedantic. In the Champions League, the rate is 0.47.
Rosetti also suggested that media pressure has fuelled the trend. “You are guilty in some way, because also you pushed for more interventions. ‘Where is VAR? Why doesn’t VAR intervene?’… But now we need to be careful about that.”
In January, the International Football Association Board (Ifab) backed plans to expand VAR’s scope to include corners and second yellow cards, a move that could increase its involvement further. Rosetti said Uefa would discuss the issue at end-of-season meetings.
