VAR to be introduced in Champions League next season

MONACO: UEFA are set to wait until next season before introducing Video Assistant Referees (VAR) in the Champions League, although they are still not ruling out having it in this season's final, president Aleksander Ceferin said on Friday.

Ceferin has so far resisted calls to bring VAR into Europe's elite club competition, despite the system largely proving successful at the World Cup in Russia.

It has also been introduced in Spain's La Liga and Ligue 1 in France this season, with those leagues following on from the German Bundesliga and Serie A in Italy, although the English Premier League has also been more cautious.

"For me, VAR is not completely clear for now, but we also know that there is no way back anymore, technology will come sooner or later," Ceferin told journalists in Monaco, where the Champions League group-stage draw was held on Thursday.

"The plan for now is to use it from the next season, with the first match which is the Super Cup," he added.

That match is due to be played in Istanbul on August 14, 2019, and the Champions League will then bring in VAR from the playoff round later the same month.

UEFA's biggest concern is how they can effectively run the system in a competition that spans an entire continent — at the World Cup, FIFA used a centralised system based in Moscow, but doing the same thing with matches being played in different countries is far more complex.