SFA bring in aviation referees to help with VAR communication

VAR will have been in operation in Scotland for three years come October, with Collum now going into his second year in charge of Scotland’s officials.

“Pilots, it’s life or death, people would say it’s life or death in football as well,” he joked.

“But we need to work really hard with our teams in the VAR centre about how they’re communicating, about keeping calm, about thinking about the facts, and being really rational in their approach there and looking at that.

“These are the levels we’re going to. We want to improve and we’ll do anything we can to improve.”

Collum says the main learning point from that visit was communication, but not simply talking to each other, more specific ways in which to communicate.

“Was it open questions, the VAR was asking the AVAR [assistant video assistant referee], not leading the AVAR, so that the AVAR was able to contribute their opinion.

“These are really, really important things. Again, though, in the heat of battle, we need the VARs and the AVARs to operate like that.

“We’ve been in the VAR centre six, seven times pre-season to train and that took us to another level yesterday as well. And we’ll incorporate that into our work when the season starts.”