On-field review that disappeared only in VARPA exhibition games, is it a coincidence
Aug 04, 2025
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Recently, the Korea Football Association and the Korea Professional Football Federation have begun to consider introducing the system formally. It was a move to keep pace with FIFA's move to expand VARPA, starting with the 2023 Women's World Cup and the 2025 Club World Cup. They immediately started a trial run. The K League 2 was the target. Five games were arbitrarily designated from round 20 to round 23. Starting with the Ansan-Seoul E-Land match on the 13th of last month, Hwaseong FC-Busan I-Park on the 19th, Seongnam FC-Jeonnam Dragons on the 27th, E-Land-Incheon United on the 2nd, and Gyeongnam FC-Busan match were piloted.
The home teams of the game, which were designated as exhibition games, are ready to operate VARPA. However, the VARPA has yet to make its debut. There was no situation for the referee to explain the reason for the decision through an in-house broadcast.
From the standpoint of the referee, 'On-Field Review' was 'On-field Review' to check the video replay directly. It was 'the last bastion' to correct the wrong. It relied on on on-field reviews to the extent that critics say the flow of the game is often cut off. That's the actual record. This season, 2.4 on-field reviews were made per game in K League 1 and 1.8 times in K League 2. However, there was not a single on-field review in the five trials of 'Unfortunately'. In other games held on the same day, on-field reviews were actively conducted. However, there are even rumors that the referee assigned to the exhibition game is reluctant to do an on-field review to avoid VARPA.
An official from the referee's side even conducted a preliminary test against the referee. He said he did not intentionally try to avoid VARPA as public suspicion.
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An official who watched this from the scene even communicated with VAR in a suspicious penalty kick situation, not offside. In the first place, the referee did not push with confidence in the first decision. Nevertheless, I don't understand that it is based on VAR's judgment without an on-field review. VAR is literally an assistant, not the subject of the final judgment. It was the veteran referee of K League 1 who was in charge of VAR against E-Land and Incheon on the day.
In this situation, K-League officials say that it would have been better to test run in K-League 1 organized by veteran referees. From the perspective of an inexperienced K League 2 referee, it could have been burdensome to cut off the first tape of the VARPA. In fact, Moon Jin-hee, chairman of the judging committee, also recently appeared on a broadcast and acknowledged that `K League 2 referees have a lot of misjudgment because they are young and inexperienced.' "We need to raise K League 2 referees step by step."It doesn't add up because even a veteran has entrusted a heavy responsibility that he has never experienced.
The VARPA card, which was taken out to strengthen the transparency and communication of the decision, is further increasing distrust of the referee with a less detailed operation, contrary to the intention.
Reporter Park Chan-joon vanbasten@sportschosun.com
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
