“We're sweating profusely”, “it's a job”: a look behind the scenes of VAR, video assistance at the heart of debates in Ligue 1

Introduced in 2018 in France, video assistance is centralized in Paris, in a secret location. Midi Libre was invited there to put itself in the shoes of a VAR referee. An intense experience.

Paris, Thursday, January 23. The meeting is set for 10 a.m. in front of an anonymous building in the center of the capital. Inside, the building looks like “Fort Alamo”, laughs one of the managers of the Technical Directorate of Refereeing, passing his badge in this labyrinth of optical cables and corridors, where you have to show your credentials and your papers. For good reason, the building houses one of the reactors of French football: the “Replay center” or “VAR box”. There, decisions are made and unmade every weekend by a video assistance system introduced in 2018 in Ligue 1.

“Four out of five errors” corrected

While the place is kept out of sight, the DTA, under the authority of the French Football Federation, has been opening it up for several years. A desired approach to “break down the barriers around refereeing”, explained the head of French referees Antony Gautier, in a video conference that Thursday in front of a dozen journalists, including Midi Libre. They had been invited to put themselves in the shoes of the VAR. Invited in the afternoon, only three club presidents had responded to the initiative.

The VAR glossary

VAR

Literally “Video Assistant Referee”, video assistance to the referee in French. In the feminine, the term refers to the technology.

The VAR

The video referee present at the “Replay center”. He is in direct communication with the official present at the center of the field.

The AVAR

The assistant video referee. He notably informs him of the decisions on the ground.

“You will see the difficulty, you will be under pressure”, warned Romain Delpech, head of video in the French elite and former referee, during the briefing. “But we are not here to convince you, rather so that you understand”, he added.

At the head of the DTA's technology, innovation and research unit, Delpech is aware of the endless debates sparked by the tool. Too slow, too much of a player in the game, lacking consistency from one weekend to the next: there is no shortage of criticism of video assistance “which does not solve everything”, he admits, but “allows you to correct four out of five errors”.

Every weekend, the “Replay center” and its dozens of screens welcome the referees responsible for the video. MAXPPP – STEPHANE MORTAGNE

Nasa, Hawk-Eye and Matrix

Grouped together in Paris, after having been installed for a time in control vans outside certain stadiums, the video referees check, “score” in their language, and communicate with the official in the center of the field. “I can tell you that we're sweating profusely!”, certifies Delpech, under the gaze of Bastien Dechepy, Jérémy Pignard or Marc Bollengier, well-known whistles of L1.

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The figure: 120 seconds

According to the FFF's Technical Directorate of Refereeing, the average intervention time of video assistance is 120 seconds in Ligue 1. These two minutes include viewing the pitch, when the central referee goes to the screen at the edge of the pitch. Furthermore, at the end of the previous 2023-2024 season, the DTA had noted 89 obvious errors corrected by the VAR, out of a total of 124 erroneous decisions. That is a correction rate of 72% and an average of “3.1 VAR interventions” per day.

Everyone goes from the lawns to this vast Parisian hall. A hundred square meters that looks like a NASA control center, with six boxes and dozens of screens. At each station, at least six TVs and three operators. The video referee, the VAR, is “the boss” in front of his two monitors: one with the live feed, the other delayed by three seconds and split into four. On his left, his assistant (AVAR), on his right an operator from the Hawk-Eye company. Well known to tennis fans, the company has its own cameras and provides images almost instantly.

In groups of two, each journalist took the place of the referees for an hour. On the desks, two buttons and two possibilities, like in Matrix: a red one, to speak to the earpiece of the central on the field, and a green one, to signal potential fouls or errors. Next to it, the technician selects the images, responds to requests for close-ups, slow motion, as close as possible to the disputed areas.

In front of the video referees, screens and two buttons, one green and one red. MAXPPP – STEPHANE MORTAGNE

“The most complicated thing is the interpretation”, confides Hamid Guenaoui, when we hesitate about a contact between a Toulousain and a Brestois. VAR referee for seven years, the official smiled when he saw us getting confused, also doubting the reality of a foul, and taking five minutes before deciding. Far from the average speed (read the figure). “It's a job, huh!”, he finally whispered when we left our chairs, drained by the concentration and so many situations to analyze.

Dechepy: “A parachute”

The preview had nothing to do with reality and 90 minutes of a match to “check” every little hitch or centimeter of an offside. “90% of situations are silent control, a simple check”, specifies Romain Delpech, who hammers home a simple but always obvious message for spectators: “The priority remains the field. It's video assistance, not video refereeing. It's a decision-making tool.”

On the pitch, the men in black can no longer do without it. While they no longer see their score automatically lowered in the event of a VAR correction – “It was unfair”, says Antony Gautier – they compare the technology to a safety net. “A parachute,” admits Dechepy, MHSC-Lens referee, last Friday. We are convinced of its usefulness.” We will no longer see it in the same way.

Two VAR errors admitted in MHSC matches

It was a strange coincidence. During our situation at the “Replay Center”, we were able to analyze two actions by Montpellier HSC. For two VAR errors, recognized as such a posteriori by the Technical Directorate of Arbitration. The latter estimates at “60~em>”7″%” the proportion of erroneous decisions after viewing. The first one was good for La Paillade since it was the goal for 2-2 scored by Arnaud Nordin,   in the 93rd minute of the match against Lille (2-2), on December 1st. This should have been disallowed, the action having been tainted by a passive offside by Junior Ndiaye, which had impacted the clearance of the Northerner Diakhité. The second dispute took place during Montpellier-Nice (2-2), on December 15th. On an overflow, Mousa Tamari had been the victim of a dangerous tackle by Clauss in the 53rd minute. Despite the intervention of the VAR, the yellow card had not turned red. A mistake, then.

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