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Video assistant referee (VAR) technology will be introduced to the age group for the first time at the upcoming U-17 Women’s World Cup in India, soccer’s world governing body FIFA announced on Tuesday.
The prestigious tournament, which has received the nod from FIFA after lifting the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) 11-day suspension, will be held in Bhubaneswar (Kalinga Stadium), Margao (JLN Stadium) and Navi Mumbai (DY Patil Stadium) from October 11 to 30 .
The Under-17 Women’s World Cup will provide us with important and significant insights into the qualities of appointed match referees. We are very pleased that VAR technology will also be used for the first time at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup,” said Kari Seitz, FIFA’s Head of Women’s Refereeing.
“This event will be another great opportunity to showcase the skills of the appointed VARs and continue the development of our female VARs as part of the Australia/New Zealand 2023 Journey project,” FIFA said in a statement.
VAR technology supports the referee’s decision-making process in four game-changing situations: goals and fouls leading to goals, penalty decisions and fouls leading to penalties, direct red card incidents and mistaken identity.
Throughout the match, the VAR team continuously checks for clear and obvious errors related to these four match-changing situations. The VAR team only communicates with the referee in the event of clear and obvious errors or serious missed incidents.
The U-17 Women’s World Cup in India will be the third FIFA Women’s tournament to use VAR, following the 2022 U-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.
This will be the second time VAR technology has been used in India, the first being in the quarter-finals of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, which the country hosted in January-February this year.
The FIFA Referees Commission also announced the tournament’s refereeing function, which consists of 14 referees, 28 assistant referees, three assistant referees and 16 video match officials.
We are delighted to see the U-17 Women’s World Cup return after a four-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are really looking forward to this important competition in India in October,” said FIFA Referees Committee Chairman Pierluigi Collina.
“For the match officials, this is of course another big stage in the preparation of potential candidates for the 2023 Australia and New Zealand Women’s World Cup.”
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) will be represented by 14 referees, assistant referees and video match officials from seven member associations. There is no one from India.
Pansa Chaisanit of Thailand, Edita Mirabidova of Uzbekistan and Oh Hyeon Jeong of Korea have been selected as referees, marking their first appointments at a FIFA tournament as head referees.
They will be joined by assistant referees Supawan Hinthong and Nuannid Donjiangreed from Thailand, Joanna Charaktis from Australia, Kristina Sereda from Uzbekistan and the Chinese duo Fang Yan and Xie Lijun.
In addition, five video match officials will assist from the VAR room – UAE’s Omar Mohamed Al Ali, Syria’s Hanna Hattab, Thailand’s Sivakorn Pu-Udom and Australia’s Lara Lee and Casey Reibelt.
