UEFA's head of refereeing, Roberto Rosetti, has voiced concern that video assistant referee reviews have strayed too far from the spirit of the game, insisting that officials must not turn matches into overly clinical exercises in rule enforcement.
Speaking at the launch of Clear Line, a new fan-facing portal designed to clarify when VAR should and should not get involved, Rosetti revealed that top refereeing figures from England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy recently held talks with him and IFAB technical director David Elleray in search of a more unified approach to VAR decisions across Europe's leading competitions.
"We realise that everywhere now there is not any satisfaction about how VAR is impacting football," Rosetti said. "So we want to avoid microscopic situations. The context is super important. It's football, not PlayStation. We need to be very, very careful. The referee must referee the match. It's something important for football, for clear situations and clear mistakes."
Rosetti acknowledged that achieving consistency will not be simple, given how differently leagues interpret certain offences—handball being a prime example. Statistics from last season show the Premier League awarded a handball penalty roughly every 17.27 games, the most lenient rate in Europe. Germany's Bundesliga followed at 10.93 games per penalty, Spain's La Liga at 10.56, Italy's Serie A at 10.00, and France's Ligue 1 at 9.27. The Champions League, by contrast, produced a handball penalty every seven games—the highest frequency of any competition—underscoring how far apart interpretations remain.
To address these discrepancies, UEFA has filled Clear Line with numerous video examples illustrating what should and should not be judged as a handball offence. "The idea is to be more consistent in the application of the laws," Rosetti explained. "The perception about handball in England is different. Football is not perfect, and sometimes we will continue to have similar situations interpreted in different ways. But at least we are working together."
The gap between competitions extends to overall VAR intervention rates as well. During the 2025-26 season, the Premier League recorded the lowest rate of VAR interventions in Europe at 0.29 per match, compared to 0.47 per match in the Champions League.
Rosetti argued that excessive intervention is altering how players approach the game, encouraging them to manufacture situations that might trigger a review rather than focus purely on football. Invoking one of the sport's most infamous moments—Diego Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal against England at the 1986 World Cup—he stressed that VAR should return to its original purpose. "We are not happy any more about this kind of use of VAR," he said. "We want to try to come back a little bit, and to put again the referees at the centre."
Time spent on reviews was another key issue raised. Rosetti warned that lengthy monitor checks involving multiple replays undermine public confidence, stating that any review lasting beyond 90 seconds risks "losing credibility." A new shared protocol has been agreed upon: when consulting the pitchside monitor, referees will first view a freeze-frame highlighting the point of contact, followed by a half-speed replay, and finally a full-speed viewing to assess the intensity of the challenge.
"We like referees with personality, taking decisions on the pitch, and VAR intervening only for clear and obvious situations," Rosetti said. "So clear images without too many replays. It is something that for us is very important. We were seeing that some on-field reviews were not connected with football. It's about normal speed, context. It's about football."
Rosetti described Clear Line as a resource intended not for referees but for everyone connected to the sport. "We started to think how we could help everyone to understand VAR better," he said. "It's a library, a structure, a document where we explain when and how VAR will intervene. This is the space that we would like you to go to after a Champions League match to check how an incident compares with this library. It's for the clubs, for the players, for the fans."
Based on reporting from BBC Sport Football.