VAR makes decision making 96.9% accurate in La Liga

The use of video assistant referee (VAR) in the Spanish football league increased the accuracy of identifying penalties up to 96.92 per cent during the last season, a study by La Ligas Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) said on Wednesday.

The VAR had corrected 44 errors made by referees with regards to penalty kicks, while 25 other decision remained unchanged, the CTA said.

CTA president Carlos Velasco Carballo and VAR director Carlos Clos Gomez presented the data for the 2018-2019 season, which said use of VAR also allowed a 98.32 per cent accuracy in yellow-card cases (1.68 per cent error) and 94.61 per cent (5.39 per cent error) in offside situations.

"It seems as if we have lived with VAR all our lives, we are satisfied," the officials said in a statement. "The noise of debate has always existed and we can anticipate that next year in October or November there may be a surge," it added.

"This year we have avoided it, but we can foresee it happening in February, in March or April and there will be more specific and precise cases, but by May we will hopefully end up like we have this year," the CTA said. "We have become accustomed to the clubs' complaints," it added.

The VAR was involved in assessing 9.5 per cent goals, a total of 4,293 incidents, during the season, with an average of 12 interventions per game, according to the data.

The referees made 66 reviews on the field screens and 55 decisions were made based on facts on the ground, with an average time of 83 second per intervention and 129 seconds per each screen review.

--IANS

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