Fifa wants to be granted its own VAR laws at the World Cup so it can use the technology for corner kick decisions.
A proposal for reviews of incorrect corners was rejected after being put forward to a technical panel for lawmakers of the game last month. However, the International Football Association Board, which writes the laws, could now grant special dispensations for next year’s World Cup and other short tournaments.
Such allowances would raise eyebrows within the Premier League. Nottingham Forest boss Sean Dyche recently bemoaned a lack of reviews in the top tier after goals were conceded in consecutive weeks from wrongly awarded corners.
Fifa essentially wants extra tools at its disposal to avoid any embarrassing mistakes, especially in the World Cup final. The world governing body is known to have first come up with the proposal to use VAR for overturning a wrong corner kick decision.
A possible allowance may add to concern within European club football that it is no longer working in unison with the global body.
Behind-the-scenes talks appear likely to continue as Fifa gathers in Washington this week for the World Cup draw.
A special arrangement, which would avoid any amendments being written into the Laws of the Game, is being discussed. Extra VAR powers would allow both Fifa and Uefa to implement their own VAR policy for short tournaments such as World Cups and European Championships.
Fifa initially suggested ahead of an Ifab meeting last month that corners should become part of VAR’s remit. However, there were mixed views from the members of the advisory panels which feature former players, coaches and referees.
The use of VAR for corners appears to break one of the fundamentals of Law Five, which says a referee cannot change a restart decision if he realises it’s incorrect after play has restarted.
There are an average of about 10 corners in each Premier League game. In July, Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham said he was against any expansion of the powers of VAR. The Ifab board is made up of the four United Kingdom football associations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) with one vote each, and Fifa, with four votes.
Background allowances are seen as a way of allowing Fifa the flexibility without changing the broader VAR protocol.
The possibility of VAR’s powers being extended to cover corner kicks and potentially even second yellow cards has been discussed informally since the summer. The possibility of intervention for second yellow cards is seen as less likely, however, as it is usually a subjective decision.
An even more radical idea – a change to penalties, in which the ball is declared “dead” if the goalkeeper saves the kick – has previously been raised but faded from discussions.
Any decision by the Ifab annual meeting next March would allow enough time for the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Ifab board members have been sceptical in the past of any extension of VAR powers across the game. An increase in delays is the main concern.
At this year’s Ifab AGM, lawmakers previously agreed to a Fifa proposal for goalkeepers to concede a corner instead of an indirect free kick if they hold on to the ball for more than eight seconds. Any change to the Laws of the Game needs at least six of the eight votes to be passed.
So, could the same law change come to the Premier League?
There is little-to-no chance of leagues being allowed to follow suit in reviewing incorrect corners. It had recently been raised in the Premier League when Nottingham Forest boss Dyche bemoaned a Casemiro goal for Manchester United. That was the second successive week his side had conceded an opening goal from what seemed to be a wrongly awarded corner. “Two in two weeks is farcical,” Dyche said. “There has to be someone who overrides this decision, because it’s gone and they’ve put it straight in the goal.”
But Dyche was wasting his breath. Ifab’s technical panels had already met and decided against implementing the rule.
That Fifa could use VAR in a silo removed from the club game will only add to a sense of scepticism that, these days, the world governing body always gets its own way.
Ferocious opposition when World Cup hosting cycles were re-engineered and anger when the football calendar was torn up went unheard.
A week after Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup ban was suspended, it will be viewed with little surprise that Fifa could also be allowed to make it up as it goes along on VAR.