Kolkata: It has been almost 10 months since All India Football Federation (AIFF) and its commercial partners Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) were briefed about Video Assistant Referee (VAR), said Trevor Kettle, the federation’s chief refereeing officer (CRO). But as the ISL 11 rolls on, clubs complaining to the All India Football Federation on contentious refereeing decisions too plods along with it.
Kettle said the accuracy is around 82% in ISL and I-League this term. “It varied between 83-84 and at the end of season was around 85% (in ISL in 2023-24).”
So, when will VAR come to Indian leagues? In January last year, AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey had said: “Our prime objective here is to reduce the margin of error by empowering match officials with the technology to assist in their decision-making. While we will continue to work to implement VAR, I feel that, to begin with, AVRS (Additional Video Review System) can be a great option for a country like India.”
But whatever system is chosen, there will be time needed and cost incurred for its implementation. In an interview to HT, Kettle, a former Premier League assistant referee, said once approved it could take between one year and 18 months to use VAR. That is how long the Implementation Assistance Approval Process (IAAP) laid down by FIFA usually takes, he said.
Apart from spending on infrastructure, training of match officials for VAR would incur cost, said Kettle. He did not want to reveal how much but said, “it wasn’t affordable for AIFF in the I-League”. As for the Indian Super League (ISL), the country’s top tier men’s competition, it is for the authorities to decide, he said. No comments, an ISL spokesperson said on Monday when asked.
A former AIFF official said VAR could cost up to ₹25 crore in the first year and ₹12-13 crore every season thereafter. Following Kettle’s briefing at the annual general meeting in Itanagar on March 10, AIFF members felt it was not affordable, said an official who attended the meeting. Not authorised to speak to the media, the official requested anonymity.
Including four women, India has 18 match officials in the elite panel of the Asian Football Confederation but since they are not VAR-trained they do not get appointments in top tournaments, said Kettle who joined in October 2022.
Eight referees and seven assistants are on full-time contract with AIFF till May 2025, he said. Announcing this in January 2023, AIFF had set a target of getting 50 on contracts by 2026. “That was not always in my plan. It was more half that number but clearly you do need the management structure to monitor referees… It is no good saying to a referee there is a full-time contract and expect him to get better,” said Kettle.
Performance in ISL and I-League is judged on Key Match Incidents (KMI) which can range from expulsion, goals allowed or disallowed, an obvious goalscoring opportunity denied, a penalty decision and off-side decisions. “I have set up the same process which happens in Premier League and we have a KMI incident review panel who look at them individually,” said Kettle.
“The KMI data is what we have to measure ourselves against. But there is a dilemma. If we say, we will set a target of 83 to 85% it says to everybody that we are prepared to have 15 to 20% error rate. And that becomes intolerable to people. But that is the reality,” he said on a video call from England on Saturday. Last February, English Premier League’s chief football officer Tony Scholes said before VAR, 82% of decisions were deemed to be correct.
Every referee in ISL and I-League is independently assessed by referees’ assessors, said Kettle. The report is separately evaluated by a KMI review panel comprising former FIFA match officials from India. “The scores of the assessors and the KMI panel are logged according to a merit table. So, referees have their own league tables and those at the bottom last season were given performance warnings. If they are at the bottom this season as well, I give it to the referees committee with the evidence,” said Kettle.
