VAR in small Colombian town friendly goes viral

Football

The video assistant referee (VAR) was a hit at last summer’s World Cup in Russia, and since has been introduced widely across the world. The president of Colombia’s Dimayor has vowed that the country’s top league will join those ranks in 2019, but a small-town friendly got there first — to the delight of the internet.

Annually on Dec. 31, on the Campo Bolivar field in the town of Sabanalarga in Northern Colombia, there’s a match played between Amigos del Campo Bolivar (Friends of Bolivar Field) and Amigos del Parque (Friends of the Park).

In the second half of Monday’s edition, referee Luis Coronado called a penalty in favor of Amigos del Parque, but a player from the opposing team asked that Coronado check the VAR.

The penalty was confirmed and scored to make the score 3-0, and the team eventually won 4-2.

The idea to introduce VAR came from Carlos Lejarde, who created his own replay system in a nearby neighborhood with two home cameras and was contacted by the tournament organizer, Carlos Navarro, to have his system used in the match.

So that’s one more competition that has embraced the future before the Premier League has.

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