Fifa’s chairman of refereeing, Pierluigi Collina, has insisted that proposed Video Assistant Referee (VAR) checks on corner-kick decisions will not disrupt the flow of football matches, despite strong opposition from several domestic leagues and members of the International Football Association Board (IFAB).
The suggestion to allow VAR to verify whether a corner has been correctly awarded was dismissed during IFAB’s annual discussions in October. Many leagues argued that expanding VAR’s scope would add unnecessary delays to a game already burdened with stoppages.
But speaking at a media briefing in Washington DC, Collina maintained that reviewing corners would fit naturally into existing pauses in play.
“Corner kicks already come with a built-in delay,” he explained. “Teams usually spend around 10 to 15 seconds sending their centre-backs forward. If, within that period, VAR can clearly detect that the corner was awarded incorrectly, it makes no sense to ignore the evidence.”
He questioned why football should “pretend the error never happened” when modern technology can prevent goals or match outcomes from arising out of a wrongly awarded set-piece.
Although IFAB turned down the proposal, Fifa remains eager to test the rule at the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada, a move expected to reignite debate about the widening influence of VAR.
Some administrators, including FA chief executive Mark Bullingham, remain firmly against the idea. Bullingham previously told BBC Sport that expanding VAR to corners would create more problems than solutions.
Collina argued otherwise, stressing consistency and fairness as key motivations.
“Our responsibility is to ensure decisions on the pitch are correct,” he said. “It would be a shame if a major competition was decided not by the players, but by a simple, honest error from a referee — especially when technology can prevent it.”
He added that VAR was introduced more than a decade ago for this very purpose: to assist referees without harming the rhythm of the game.
Talks about the proposal will resume at IFAB’s next meeting in January. In the meantime, the body has already agreed to consider extending VAR to cover cases where a player incorrectly receives a second yellow card leading to a red.
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