GFA, CAF and FIFA begin two-day VAR Kick-off meeting

The VAR project team of Ghana on Wednesday, May 5, 2021, began a two day kick-off meeting with officials from CAF and FIFA.

The meeting which was supposed to be held on site in Accra is being held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be recalled that in April 2021, a FIFA technical team approved a project team for Ghana to work on modalities on the implementation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in Ghana.

The kick-off meeting will give the entire VAR project team of Ghana the opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of the entire project and its dependencies.

VAR Project leader Schlemmer Dirk and GFA Referees Manager Alexander Kotey are leading the discussions. Others include Guilherme Barbosa, Bossler Michael and Moorghen Bhavershan.

Retired FIFA Referee Eddy Maillet leads the CAF technical team with support from Doue Noumandiez Desire and Wael Elsebaey.

FIFA Project leader Schlemmer Dirk gave an update on current VAR implementation status, VAR Implementation I, VAR / Referee education and VAR Technology during the first day meeting on Wednesday.

The team will continue the session on Thursday, May 6 to discuss the approval process, VAR Implementation Assistance and Approval Programme (IAAP) platform and VAR Implementation II.

Ghana is working assiduously to implement the Video Assistant Referee in our domestic competitions by 2022/23 season.

The Ghana Project team is made up of Project leader – Alex Kotey, Legal – Prosper Harrison-Addo, Finance- Eyram Dzikunu, Communications -Henry Asante Twum, IT – Francis Adu Essah, Research/Monitoring & Security- Julius Emunah, Competitions & Organization – Sena Akoto-Ampaw and Marketing & Publicity- Jamil Maraby.

The Video Assistant Referee is an assistant referee in association football who intervenes in decisions made by the referee and requests for an on field review with the use of video footage and headset for communication.

VAR was first written into the Laws of the Game by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in 2018, following extensive training in a number of major competitions.

Currently, only few African countries, namely, Morocco, South Africa and Egypt use VAR in their domestic competitions.