XtraTime Web Desk: The UEFA Champions League to get the use of VAR technology for the first time from the 2019/20 season. The referral system got highly criticized during its use in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. But the decision to introduce it in the Champions League shows that world football only wants to find the positives of it.
The UEFA Executive Committee met this morning at the House of European Football in Nyon and decided to introduce Video Assistant Referees (VAR) in the 2019/20 UEFA Champions League, as of the play-off stage of the competition (August 2019). In addition, it was decided that VAR would also be used at the 2019 UEFA Super Cup. UEFA plans to subsequently extend the use of VAR at the final tournament of UEFA EURO 2020, in the 2020/21 UEFA Europa League (group-stage onwards), and in the 2021 UEFA Nations League Finals.
Commenting on the introduction of VAR, UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin said, “We are confident that introducing Video Assistant Referees in August 2019 will give us enough time to put in place a robust system and to train match officials to ensure an efficient and successful implementation of VAR in the UEFA Champions League, the world’s flagship club competition.”
The draw procedure for the European Qualifiers 2020, which will take place at the Convention Centre in Dublin on 2 December 2018 at 11.00 local time, was approved. The ten groups of five or six teams will decide 20 finalists, with the remaining four contenders emerging from the European Qualifiers play-offs, for which teams will qualify via the UEFA Nations League.
The draw procedure for the first four-team UEFA Nations League Finals 2019, to take place on 3 December 2018 in Dublin, was also approved.
The UEFA Executive Committee appointed Gondomar, Portugal as hosts of the finals of the inaugural UEFA Women’s Futsal EURO 2019, which will see the teams of Portugal, Russia, Spain and Ukraine face each other in semi-finals, a third-place match and the final between 14 and 17 February 2019.
Latvia were appointed as hosts of the final tournament of the first edition of the UEFA Under-19 Futsal EURO 2019 which will see eight teams, including the hosts, face each other in two groups of four, semi-finals and a final in September 2019.
Finally, the Football Federation of Kosovo was ratified as a new member of the UEFA Referee Convention.
The meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee will continue this afternoon with the selection of the hosts for UEFA EURO 2024.
The next meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee will take place in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, on 3 December 2018.