Turkey’s top league to use VAR system

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s football federation announced Friday its top league will use the video assistant referee (VAR) system which has made a huge impact at the World Cup from next season.

The system would be used both in the Spor Toto Super League top flight and also the end-of-season play off matches from League 1, the TFF said in a statement.

VAR has been a major talking point at the World Cup in Russia, where it has been used in international football’s top competition for the first time and played a decisive role in several games.

Its use in Turkey is expected to be hugely significant with the Super Lig increasingly competitive and tense games in fractious atmospheres often decided by a single contentious decision.

VAR has been used to varying degrees of success in Serie A and the German Bundesliga, while FIFA used the system at the Confederations Cup in Russia last year. But the English Premier League voted in April not to use the system during the 2018/19 Premier League season after controversial trials in English cup competitions.

VAR technology is used in what are considered “game-changing” situations, such as a goal, penalty or red card, and can also be used to help referees with cases of mistaken identity.

Meanwhile, the TFF announced that the new 2018/2019 season would be named after Lefter Kucukandonyadis, a celebrated forward in the 1950s and 1960s who played for Fenerbahce and was one of Turkey’s few stars of Greek descent. He died in 2012.