VAR increases level of excitement in a football match: Referee Pierluigi Collina

Legendary Italian referee Pierluigi Collina has said that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) only increases the level of excitement in a football match.

"I do not think VAR kills the excitement of a goal celebration, if anything it increases the level of excitement. You get to celebrate twice, when scoring and when it's confirmed," Goal.com quoted Collina as saying.

The newest addition to the football games has often sparked controversy so far, a trend which has continued with its introduction into England's domestic competition Premier League this season.

Many divisive calls have been made in the Premier League which has seen many goals being disallowed.

Offside calls have also led to a debate over whether the cameras used for VAR checks are fit for purpose due to frame-rate issues.

"Even if it feels like VAR has been around forever, it was only thought up five years ago. In principle, it was meant to be a simple visual aid for the referee. One of the biggest problems was in reliability, but the reaction time of the technology has advanced light-years. What takes one minute today took five minutes in 2014 during our first tests," Collina said.

"We are working constantly and the technology we will have in five years could be totally different from the one we see now," he added.

The time taken to make decisions through VAR has also been criticised by the football fans.

"Of course, nobody likes to wait. But a big step forward would be if we create a programme using artificial intelligence to immediately select at most 20 different camera angles," Collina said.

Collina is now FIFA's chief refereeing commissioner. He was also named the Referee of the Year in the Italian Serie A seven times, and in 2011 he was inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame.

( With inputs from ANI )