VAR comes to local game

Fungai Muderere

COSAFA referees manager Felix Tangawarima says they are happy to have finally received Video Assistant Referee (VAR) equipment, which they had long waited for.

He said the introduction of VAR will be a big milestone for the Southern Region, marking an exciting new era. He said the acquisition of the equipment would set international standards as the technology would be used to train referees, which is becoming vital with the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and Fifa.

“This makes us happy as we can now plan the schedules of our trainings. The reason why we cannot confirm any further details is that, as we now have the equipment, we need to have the manpower.

The secretariat under our executive directors is working on that so that we will be able to train our own operations personnel who can operate the equipment. As the referees’ department, we have identified people whom we thought if they are trained they will always be with us, they will not leave us,” said Tangawarima.

He added: “So this is a very important area where we are now. It has impacted our referees in terms of international assignments. Now in all the Caf tournaments, we are using VAR and if our referees are not trained to officiate with VAR they are left behind. So for us as referees, we are happy that this equipment has come in time. We need to utilise it to the best for the benefit of referees and our national associations.”

The esteemed former Zimbabwe referee said they will have it in the later stages of the men’s senior Cosafa Cup that is set for June. After a successful pilot project last year at the Cosafa Women’s Championship, the aim is now to have VAR at all Cosafa events in the future.