Sport, arts & culture minister Gayton McKenzie is pushing to fulfill his promise to introduce the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology locally by sending South African Football Association VAR project leader Daniel Bennett to Spain this weekend to meet with one of four potential suppliers.
Safa is talking about giving the system a test run in the two Nedbank Cup semifinals scheduled for May next year.
Former Fifa referee Bennett met with Pablo Reyes, president of Quality Media, in Madrid on Friday and inspected the facilities of the company that conducts VAR for the Femenino, the highest level of league competition for women’s football in Spain.
It included an on-site observation of the football video support and broadcast production of the Primera Federation Division 2 encounter between Betis Deportivo Balompie versus Sabadell FC on Friday night.
The trip was arranged for Bennett — who was accompanied by McKenzie’s special advisor Charles Cilliers — to gain first-hand experience of Quality Media’s Hub centralised VAR model.
It’s their main remote production facility, which features a full video operations room, production infrastructure, operational workflows and technology capability.
VAR project leader
“As soon as we heard Safa had appointed Bennett as their VAR project leader, we met with him to ascertain what stage they were at,” said Cilliers.
“We recommended that they look into the operations of Quality Media because the minister and the director general had seen it for themselves during a visit to Spain in April. We were curious to see if there could be a cost benefit by using their model.”
Yesterday, Bennett travelled to Barcelona for a technical tour of a TV compound to observe a live production workflow and transmission from the hub to experience a real-time full remote operation of the women’s match between Barcelona and Real Madrid at the Lluis Company’s Olympic Stadium.
Today, he will visit the Spanish Football Federation (RFEP) headquarters in La Rozas to see a live full VAR operation from the RFEP Video Operation Room of Spanish second division matches between Sporting Gijon and Elbar, and Almeria against Cadiz.
“The idea was to confirm the company has a full VAR system and not just the football video support,” said Bennett.
“I was impressed with the facilities and that a full VAR setup is in place. We met Reyes, whose company was complimented by Fifa for having a compliable programme.”
Potential service provider
Of the 11 VAR companies that have forwarded tenders to partner with Safa, four — Quality Media, Hawkeye Innovations of the UK, Portugal’s MediaPro, and Rigour from China — have been identified to potentially become the technical service provider.
“These are the ones we’ve looked at and are taking seriously. I went to the English Premier League VAR hub in July. I worked with MediaPro about four years ago when Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates were in the Champions League,” said Bennett.
“I’ve never worked with Rigour, but their reputation is very strong. Today [Friday], we had a meeting with Pablo Reyes, the president of Quality Media. It was very successful,” he said.
I’ve never worked with Rigour, but their reputation is very strong. Today [Friday], we had a meeting with Pablo Reyes, the president of Quality Media. It was very successful.
Bennett said Safa was exploring where to locate the VAR centre, and will have a “kick-off meeting” with Fifa on November 24 to lay the groundwork for steps to be followed for VAR implementation. “It looks very cool,” he said of Quality’s facilities.
“It’s a matter of how much it’s going to cost. How many rooms are we going to be able to get? Are we going to be able to get OB vans in our system at all?
“I’m going to report back to the committee on what we’re looking at. What are the final numbers because we need to crack on. This can be done quite quickly. If there are funds available and we’ve decided on our budget, we can be ready...
“The project’s aim is for South Africa, which has one of the best leagues in Africa, to have VAR because every top league in the world has it.”
Three African countries — Algeria, Egypt and Morocco — employ VAR in their leagues.
Correct decisions
Bennett said the purpose of implementing VAR was “to give the players and the fans who spend hard-earned money to watch the match the correct decision, which they deserve”.
He added: “And to also enable match officials to reach the correct outcome of a particular wrong decision. We’re potentially looking at a soft implementation of the VAR system for the Nedbank Cup semifinals and possibly the final. We do have enough people that are already trained to cover two games. At the moment we don’t have enough trained people to cover a full eight-match fixture.”
Bennett said the companies are yet to provide quotatioms. “Although we’ve reached out to various service providers, we’re still awaiting costing for the supply of hardware and software relating to the budget.
“We are looking at acquiring a provider that will come at an affordable price and the right product for our federation and league.”
Last week McKenzie said National Treasury had “approved an initial spend of R20m”. He said: “Next year you will be seeing VAR. When we introduce it next season, it must be foolproof. Our referees must understand it.”
Bennett’s VAR management team includes ex-referee and VAR instructor Jerome Damon, Safa head of refereeing Abdul Ebrahim and Victor Gomes, the chairman of Safa’s referees committee and vice-chairman of the Confederation of African Football (Caf referees committee.
Abongile Tom, Luxolo Badi and Akhona Makhalima are Caf- and Fifa-trained VAR officials, while Zakhele Siwela is an assistant video referee.
Quality has implemented VAR in Costa Rica, Honduras, Thailand, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama.
- Kortjaas was in Spain at the invitation of the department of sport, arts & Culture.
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