VAR to make Scottish Premiership debut next season
The 42 SPFL clubs have voted for video assistant referees (VAR) to be introduced into the Scottish Premiership next season.
The cost of the Hawkeye Innovations System will be £1.2m and will be shared by the 12 Scottish Premiership clubs based on their placing in the league at the end of this season. That would mean if Aberdeen remain in 9th position our contribution will be £77,000.
The system will be installed over the coming months with six cameras being installed in each ground, and it will also be used in the League Cup semi-finals and final in January and February 2023.
SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster said he was “very pleased” that the vote resulted in the “right decision”.
“The SPFL chose not to be an early adopter of VAR technology to allow time for teething issues to be ironed out by those leagues who adopted VAR early,” he added.
“I believe this was the right decision and that VAR will help referees to ensure tight decisions are more often the right ones and will support a higher standard and more consistent level of decision-making.
“Scottish referees are fully on-board with this innovation and have been overwhelmingly supportive about the introduction of VAR during our consultation process with our partners at the Scottish FA.”
VAR will be in seven areas:
- For penalty box decisions/penalty kick or possible penalty kick offences.
- For goals scored – all goals scored, and the build up to the goal being scored, are checked under VAR.
- For straight red card offences, such as violent conduct and the denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity.
- For serious misapplications of the laws – such as a goal scored direct from a dropped ball or throw in.
- For cases of mistaken identity.
- At the taking of a penalty kick and at kicks from the penalty mark (e.g., for encroachment or goalkeeper moving from the goalline.
- For serious, missed incidents in matches.
