Referee data

VAR: Reviews, Penalties and Decisions

How VAR works under the IFAB protocol, what it can and cannot review, and what the numbers say about penalties and overturned decisions.

VAR can only step in for four kinds of match-changing decision, and only when the original call is a clear and obvious error. This section explains how reviews work and looks at the data on penalties, on-field reviews and overturned decisions.

The definitions we use are in Glossary: Cards, Corners and Officials.