UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said on Thursday that he often has difficulty understanding the interpretation of football rules since the introduction of VAR.
«Sometimes the fans cannot understand some interpretations of the rules. I often cannot understand it,» Ceferin said at a conference in Madrid.
«Nobody understands handball, for example. Is it a punishment? Is it not a punishment? Nobody knows. It was intentional, how do you know that? You are not a psychiatrist.»
The head of European football’s governing body also lamented the length of time some VAR interventions take on the pitch.
“We try to explain to the referees that the referee on the field is the one who decides,” Ceferin said.
«And only if it is a clear and obvious mistake do you intervene. And even interventions have to be quick, not only in the Spanish league. I saw it in the Premier League, sometimes watching for ten to fifteen minutes.»
He also called for greater harmonization of the interpretation of the rules in Europe’s various national competitions.
“I see that referees who referee at European level sometimes referee differently than in their own competitions,” said the Slovenian.
“Because they have different referee bosses in the leagues. So I think we should do that because it’s one match and it should be the same way.”
Ceferin added that the best way to avoid mistakes was to “strictly try to obey the rules of the International Football Association Board (IFAB)”.
Published on April 24, 2026
