Uzbekistan's referees complete the second edition of the AFC VAR course

Uzbekistan’s referees Valentin Kovalenko, Ilgiz Tantashev and Aziz Asimov attended the AFC Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system course when the Continent’s top 40 match officials completed the second edition of the VAR course on Monday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Led by International Football Association Board (IFAB) Technical Director, David Elleray (Great Britain), and AFC VAR technical experts Uzbekistan’s Farkhad Abdullaev, Ali Al Traifi (Saudi Arabia), Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh (Malaysia) and Hakan Anaz (Australia), the five-day course included match analysis of more than 20 matches.

Simultaneously, an additional team of VARs worked with a surrogate referee to reinforce the importance of communications, teamwork, the line of intervention as well as VAR protocol and procedures.

The two editions – held in April and July 2019 – have been organised in preparation for upcoming AFC competitions, following the successful introduction of VAR from the quarter-final stage of the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 earlier this year.

The quality of AFC VARs has been widely recognised globally, after Australia’s Christopher Beath and Mohammed Abdulla Hassan Mohamed from the UAE were hand-picked by FIFA to form part of a specially selected male crew for the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 in June.

Similarly, China PR’s Fu Ming, Khamis Al Marri from Qatar, and UAE’s Ammar Aljeneibi were also selected as VARs in the FIFA U-20 World Cup Poland 2019 last month.