UEFA takes step to tackle VAR problem with ‘Clear Line’ platform

NYON (Switzerland): The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has taken a massive step towards cementing video technology, creating the ‘Clear Line’ platform, a guide which can be used by anyone to know how and when a video assistant referee should intervene.

As per a report from AS newspaper cited by Goal.com, the ‘Clear Line’ is already up and running, meant to summarise the cases, plays, procedures and criteria that should be applied and explain the workings of the VAR system that has produced so much controversy over the years.

Roberto Rosetti, head of UEFA’s referees committee, said as quoted by Goal.com, “The question everyone is asking is: when should the video assistant referee intervene? This is the main topic. No one knows when they should do it”.

Roberto said that all the experience of around eight years, on various VAR cases, was used to bring the platform to life, and it is not limited just to officials; it is for players, coaches, fans and journalists as well.

𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞: A guide to referee decisions in European football

Clear Line is UEFA’s refereeing video library, providing unprecedented open access to the guidance we give to referees and VARs to help them apply the Laws of the Game consistently across Europe.

Find… pic.twitter.com/5dHZGGKUPi

— UEFA (@UEFA) August 11, 2026

“We drew on our experience spanning around 8 years, on the various VAR cases, and on more than 100 clear clips, and we created Clear Line. It is a document in which we explain when and how the video assistant referee should intervene, and it has been prepared so that everyone can have a clear line. It is not intended for referees only, but for football. It is intended for players, coaches, fans and journalists too,” he added.

For Roberto, the foundation of VAR had to rest on a system capable of keeping everything organised.

Another UEFA official, Velasco Carballo, said that “it is not a web page for referees or referee organisations”. “This is a web page created to explain our basic principles to anyone. It is the space we would like to be referred to after a Champions League match, to compare cases with the clips in the library,” he continued.

“It is a web page intended for clubs, players and fans. And in some of the texts, one can find expressions that may, perhaps, be very colloquial, and not in referees’ terminology, but we did that deliberately,” he signed off.

UEFA will follow this guide from the 2026-27 season to make VAR less interventionist, focusing on more blatant and serious errors rather than fine and small ones. (ANI)