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So this may have happened to you. You're watching the World Cup. Your team finally scores. You scream. You jump around. Everything is great. But wait - the referee says it is time for a video review. The use of VAR, the video assistant referee, has been one of the great controversies at this year's World Cup. FIFA says it is making the game more fair, but some fans and teams say it is being abused. Has VAR gone too far? NPR's Jasmine Garsd reviews the footage.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: The VAR wasn't always the villain. Let me go back to 2009, during a qualification match for the World Cup, France-Ireland.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: And suddenly, the French are back in control.
GARSD: Thierry Henry was a forward for France. As heard here on Sky Sports, it was a hand ball. The ref didn't call it.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: There. No question he handles it. It's unbelievable.
GARSD: This was hardly the first time there was an accusation of a hand goal. But by 2009, the technology did exist to look at the play. It just wasn't being used because FIFA, soccer's ruling body, is incredibly reluctant to change its rules. I mean, up until 1970, teams weren't even allowed to make substitutions. Professor Chris Davis (ph) from Adelphi University studies the history of sports, and he says whenever FIFA is thinking about making a big change, they look towards the U.S.
CHRIS DAVIS: A lot of the innovations in soccer - just even putting names in the back of jerseys - started in the United States.
GARSD: He says fans in the U.S. are typically not so caught up in soccer traditionalism. And so VAR was tested in 2014 and 2015 in Major League Soccer matches. Then it was introduced in the 2018 World Cup. Here's how it works. There's a referee crew on the field, and then there's another watching on video. And for the most part, Davis says, people liked that.
DAVIS: Clear instances were being corrected, and I think that was the beauty of it, where it's like - like, the referee couldn't see that, right? So we have a clear instance of protecting the integrity of the game.
GARSD: But it also wasn't being used that much. Fast-forward to 2026, and refs checking VAR has become ubiquitous in every game, especially when it comes to offside. Consider the Iran match against Belgium. An Iran goal was taken away because a VAR found that the Iranian player's butt was offside. A few days later, a Colombian goal was annulled when an attacker's toe was offside.
FELIPE CARDENAS: It is completely interrupting what the game state is.
GARSD: This is Felipe Cardenas, senior writer with The Athletic.
CARDENAS: And one of the best and most special moments in a football match is a goal, and the goal celebration. And now every goal gets reviewed. And there are times where the players have to wait until the referee gets the right decision, and he hears from the VAR.
GARSD: And VAR is at the center of one of the most controversial games in this cup, Egypt-Argentina. For most of the game, Egypt dominated. They made a second goal in the 67th minute. The VAR pointed to a questionable foul that happened in the lead up, all the way across the field. The referee reviewed the video. Egypt's goal got annulled, and Argentina went on to win.
CARDENAS: So that's why Egypt still considers that they have been robbed at this World Cup.
GARSD: At the end of the day, the use of VAR and tech in soccer echoes a lot of conversations happening in society today. Where is the line between tech helping and going too far? Cardenas says he thinks the answer is somewhere in the middle.
CARDENAS: You know, as football fans, you should live with human error at times. It's OK for a referee to make a mistake. We're getting to the point where it's like - it's taboo if a referee makes a mistake.
GARSD: In other words, sometimes you just got to accept the ref's decision, no ands, butts or toes.
Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF FREDDIE GIBBS AND THE YOUNG JAZZ REBELS SONG, "GAT DAMN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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