VAR follows new guidelines and disappears on the first matchday of La Liga

One of the guidelines established by the new Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) for the 2025-2026 season is for the VAR to intervene less during the course of a match. This new guideline, along with eight other indications, was included in a circular issued by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) a week ago.

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The directive has resonated with the referees and was strictly followed in the first nine La Liga matches played between Friday and Monday. The exception came in the Mallorca - Barça match, played on Saturday at Son Moix, where Jorge Figueroa Vázquez, one of the 15 members of the VAR PRO team (referees exclusively in charge of video refereeing), called Munuera Montero to the monitor to consider changing the yellow card he showed to Muriqi to a red card, which he did. The fact that the VAR only intervened once suggests that this season the 189 VAR interventions that occurred last season will not be reached. A record number since this tool was implemented in the 2018-2019 season, and well above other major leagues, according to the CTA. David Fernández Borbalán and Eduardo Prieto Iglesias, technical director of the CTA and head of VAR, respectively, explained last Thursday in a meeting before the start of the First and Second Divisions that one of the objectives this season is to have the VAR intervene less, and to do so in "clear, obvious, and manifest" errors in goals, penalties, red cards, and identity confusion. All this to ensure the principle of "minimum intervention, maximum benefit" prevails. Furthermore, Fran Soto announced that, starting this week, he will conduct a round of visits to all First and Second Division clubs.

Fernández Borbalán announced on Thursday that the VAR will reduce its interventions for this season.

Among the remaining eight guidelines, the most notable are the time limit on which the goalkeeper can hold the ball in their hands, and the retake of a penalty if the penalty taker inadvertently touches the ball twice (as happened to Julián Álvarez in the last Champions League penalty shootout against Real Madrid) . If a goalkeeper holds the ball in their hands for more than eight seconds, the infringement will be awarded with a corner for the opposing team, while if the penalty taker inadvertently touches the ball twice before it goes in, the penalty will be retaken. If the penalty taker inadvertently touches the ball twice, but there is no goal, the referee will award an indirect free kick to the defending team (unless the referee grants an advantage when the action clearly benefits the defending team).

Another new feature the CTA will implement this season, in pursuit of greater transparency, will be the publication of videos every two or three weeks on the federation's website and/or social media, reviewing specific mistakes and successes made by referees in League matches. This initiative will be made public later this week.