BRAZIL CUP
CBF opens tender for video referee
Pursuant to the announcement made to clubs during the mid-February meetings, 14 matches played effective the 2018 Brazil Cup Quarterfinals will include video assistant referee (VAR) technology. On Wednesday (21), CBF will open a tender with the purpose of hiring the company that will be in charge of the technology aimed at supporting referees’ decision-making processes. The deadline for submitting proposals will be March 5 at 5:00 p.m.
In this tender, interested companies who prove they fulfill the necessary technical requirements will receive an invitation letter listing each specification that must be met. In addition to Brazil Cup matches, which will already set forth VAR use, CBF may resort to the bid winner to use the technology in other tournament matches, as set forth under the 2018 General Rules of Competition (RGC) (read more here).
The CBF-hired company will be in charge of providing the necessary specific equipment and technical services required for full-scale VAR use, enabling a high quality performance of each image review procedure in compliance with the International Football Association Board (IFAB) protocol, football’s foremost global refereeing entity, as foreseen under the VAR Handbook (click here to read the document).
“We are pleased that 16 companies have already shown an interest in partaking in the tender, which will enable a comprehensive review of technical and financial market offers. We will now launch the review process aimed at carrying out the necessary tests to successfully introduce the project, since CBF was a pioneer in the introduction of the video assistant referee”, states CBF’s Executive Director Rogério Caboclo.
The commercial offer picked by CBF will take into account criteria such as lowest sum due, experience, and technical and human resources excellence in dealing with audiovisual projects, resourcefulness to invest in equipment and suitable framework, among others.
Training
Always in compliance with the International Football Association Board-drafted Protocol, CBF undertook thorough arrangements to use the technology. Activities consisted of theoretical, practical, offline and online training sessions aimed at adequately preparing VAR Supervisors, Referees, Assistant Video Referees and Assistant Video Assistant Referees, in addition to video operators, from September to October 2017.
During this time, 24 live training matches and hundreds of arranged situations spearheaded by instructors were carried out, resulting in over 3,200 videos, and the project leader published 420 movie clips at the IFAB website, thereby attaining the necessary expertise. In all, 113 refereeing team members were trained by CBF, including 16 supervisors, 15 video operators and 74 referees, as well as eight officials certified by FIFA and CONMEBOL, VAR and VAAR.
Instructor training sessions were carried out in Switzerland and Paraguay, and officials were certified in Águas de Lindóia, in São Paulo State, which included three football pitches and top-notch facilities required to host events and youth division teams during a 20-day term. Administrative measures were also carried out with those at the helm of the project participating in 84 activities, such as meetings both in Brazil as well as abroad, training sessions and live tests, all of them supervised by IFAB/FIFA representatives.
VAR arrangements began in March 2016, shortly after CBF was granted permission to undertake the experiment. Two off-line tests were carried out at the Carioca Championship (Rio de Janeiro State) finals between Botafogo and Vasco at the Maracanã Stadium.
On video assistant referees
The groundbreaking project is Brazilian-born and was established with the support of CBF’s Refereeing Commission and the National Football Refereeing School (ENAF). Video assistant referees oversee four types of situations: goal/not goal; penalty kick/not penalty kick; straight and inappropriate red card and mistaken identity of sanctioned player.
Arbitragem Brasileira 