Major League Soccer is about to enter a new era of officiating. Yes, after much discussion and hype, video replay will come online in live games this weekend. Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is being launched with the hope of fixing obvious, game-changing mistakes.
It’s a bold and admirable goal that will, no doubt, be fraught with debate. We’ve already seen the system used at the Confederations Cup and in the Australian top flight to varying degrees of success.
But before it’s unveiled, we should probably do our best to simply understand how it will work. The video attached above answers most of the questions you’ll probably have, but assuming you don’t want to spend an hour watching it, we’ve summed up the key points here: