This is how the 'secret' VAR room works in the RFEF: "They are technological conversations, not refereeing"

When you hear or read “secret VAR room” in Las Rozas, one may think that in Ciudad de Fútbol there is a room that is accessed behind a fireplace by pushing the support of a poker like Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade. But the complementary Video Arbitration room, one of the seven that make up the system, has been there since 2018, the year this technology landed in the Spanish LaLiga. It is not a 'secret room' or invisible as some media outlets have reflected and the former referee, Xavier Estrada Fernández, has stated.

“This room was used by LaLiga in the first year of the VAR for television broadcast issues,” Carlos Clos Gómez, responsible for Video Arbitration in Spain and former soccer referee, explains to EL MUNDO.. After that 'secret' room was abandoned by LaLiga staff in 2019, the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) decided that the outgoing VAR judges of a match from Las Rozas would watch other matches with a “training” and “surveillance”.

This work was carried out by Clos Gómez himself in the first year of the VAR but, after a conversation with Carlos Velasco Carballo, former president of the CTA, the idea arose that this work would be distributed among the entire VAR group, among them, Xavier Estrada Fernandez.

The training objective of that room was to learn “how your partner is working, how he is acting and how he is communicating with the VOR,” according to Clos Gómez.. A task for which they intended to introduce the LaLiga F referees in November.

The surveillance focuses on two aspects: In “exceptional circumstances” of the matches, such as racist incidents or other serious events, which are communicated to those responsible for the CTA with Clos Gómez at the head. And in the ''technological and non-technical prescriptions'', which can be transmitted to the main room.

“The communications between that room and the VOR are absolutely nothing arbitral, they are simply technological,” explains Clos Gómez.. That is, the referees who watch the matches from this complementary room only notify their colleagues in the VOR room when the image of an offside, where the lines are shown for the audience to view, It has not been offered on the television broadcast.

Another function of the presence of these VAR referees in this complementary room is to serve as substitutes for the main ones in the event that any incident occurs, usually medical, that prevents them from continuing with their work.. Something, by the way, that has not happened in the five years that the VAR has been established in Spain.

IFAB rules

The presence of this room was not only known by LaLiga and the rest of the football players, but it has been the subject of multiple visits by them.. LaLiga sources assure that they knew of the existence of these rooms, but they do not know what happens there in its entirety.

There is some discrepancy about the possibility of communication between this room and the main VOR room.. Article 3 of the VAR protocol of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the organization that deals with the regulation of football, explains that “during the match, only authorized persons may enter the video room or communicate with the VAR , the AVAR or the repetition technician”.

It is not well established which body decides who are the “authorized persons” to do so.. According to Clos Gómez, this is because the regulations could not be so exhaustive in all sections or the rules would be incomprehensible and he assures that it refers mainly to technological aspects and not to the development of matches.

Likewise, the person in charge of the VAR in Spain urges anyone who questions the communications between rooms to report it to the competent courts since “everything” that happens in the VOR room of a match is recorded, both visually and visually. audio and it would be very easy to check if there has been any message that exceeds the functions of this 'secret room'.

Clos Gómez does not understand why Estrada Fernández has chosen this moment to sow doubt in the questioned arbitration group, especially affected by the Negreira case, taking into account that he spent a long time working in the VAR and did not make this complaint previously. “For me it has been a huge surprise,” says Clos Gómez.