UEFA are set to wait until next season before introducing Video Assistant Referees in the Champions League, although they are still not ruling out having it in this season’s final, president Aleksander Ceferin said on Friday.
Ceferin has so far resisted calls to bring VAR into Europe’s elite club competition, despite the system largely proving successful at the World Cup.
It has also been introduced in Spain and France this season, with those leagues following on from the Bundesliga and Serie A, although the English Premier League has been more cautious.
“For me, VAR is not completely clear for now, but we also know that there is no way back anymore, technology will come sooner or later,” Ceferin told journalists in Monaco, where the Champions League group-stage draw was held on Thursday.
“The plan for now is to use it from the next season, with the first match which is the Super Cup.”
That match is due to be played in Istanbul on August 14, 2019, and the Champions League would then bring in VAR from the playoff round the same month.
“When we are ready we will use it, but it is not so easy because we have to choose the provider, it is not easy to organise a competition across the continent with all the referees, so we have some issues,” said Ceferin.
There had been reports that VAR could come in from the latter stages of this season’s competition, but UEFA’s Slovenian president now says it is unlikely to be used even in the final in Madrid next June.
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