FIFA is set to press ahead with plans to have VAR checks on the awarding of corner kicks at the 2026 World Cup despite domestic leagues rejecting the idea for the wider game.
At an October meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) – which determines the laws of the game – there was agreement that VAR could be expanded to cover incorrectly shown second yellow cards that lead to a red.
But FIFA’s proposal to review corners was rejected, meaning world football’s governing body will need to effectively create a trial to use it in the United States, Mexico and Canada next summer.
The measures will be discussed further at the next IFAB meeting in January, but FIFA has regularly applied trials to its competitions.
Semi-automated offside technology and referees announcing VAR decisions to the crowd are two examples, and it could use the same mechanism to start reviewing corners.
Pierluigi Collina, FIFA’s head of referees, has been a supporter of the change as part of a wider review of VAR protocol.
Collina is open to going further, too, believing that any error that can quickly be identified by the VAR could potentially be communicated.
The former referee has highlighted an incident in the Euro 2016 final, when Portugal were wrongly awarded a free-kick in extra time for handball on the edge of the area that almost led to a goal.
Leagues concerned about further delays
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche was frustrated when his team conceded two goals from corners that were wrongly awarded earlier this season.
But unless Ifab changes its stance, he will not get his wish for them to be reviewed in the future.
All leagues are under pressure to limit the delays as a result of VAR, and there is real opposition to anything that might make it worse.
Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham, who sits on the IFAB board, has previously told BBC Sport he is against it.
The VAR assessing wrongly issued second yellow cards is likely to be approved from the start of the next campaign because there are relatively few of those in a season, certainly compared to the number of corners in a game. There are, on average, 10 corners a match in the Premier League.
A real issue for domestic leagues is resources, especially as you drop down the tiers, whereas FIFA has the ability to appoint as many video referees as it wants for its showpiece event.
At the World Cup in 2022, group-stage games had five people working in the VAR room, whereas domestic leagues usually have just two.
In addition to the VAR and assistant VAR, FIFA appointed an offside VAR, a support VAR and a support assistant VAR.
FIFA can also make sure there are enough cameras positioned in the right places to make quick decisions, which would be more challenging for domestic leagues.
There is also the connected technology in the Adidas ball, not available to leagues, which means the VAR during the World Cup would be able to instantly identify who touched the ball last in close cases.
This would all be impossible to replicate for domestic leagues.
Even at the Premier League level, there have been issues having cameras to cover the whole goal line.
This was the case with Newcastle’s controversial winning goal against Arsenal two years ago, when the VAR did not have the evidence that the ball was out.
If corners were to be added to protocol, it would mean that all leagues with VAR would have to check them – not just the Premier League, but including the Scottish Premiership, the Dutch Eredivisie, down to the second divisions in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
It would create significant additional delays as leagues would not have the means to make quick and consistent decisions.
For these reasons, FIFA has been unable to get this through the IFAB panels, so it looks poised to run its own trial at the World Cup next year.
How will it work at the World Cup?
One of the fundamentals of the Laws of the Game that applies at all levels is that a referee cannot change a restart decision even if they realise it is incorrect after play is back underway.
So, once the corner is taken and play is live, the game must continue.
For that reason, every corner will have to be reviewed by the VAR – although in the majority of cases the decision will be obvious.
FIFA believes it has the resources – from VARs to cameras to the ball technology – to make all decisions quickly.
It will present a departure from VAR protocol, which is only intended to look at four specific areas: goals, penalties, red cards and mistaken identity. In the World Cup next year, the awarding of corners is set to be added to that list.
If only the awarding of corners that directly lead to a goal were checked by VAR, it is possible that if the attacking team knew the referee should have awarded a goal-kick, they might take it is short, knowing scoring directly from the corner would be disallowed by the VAR.
Instead they could try to work an opening after taking a short corner and because it was not directly from the kick, the goal would stand.
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