A press report said on Thursday that the International Federation of Football Association "FIFA" has taken an important step to overcome the refereeing controversy, starting from the Morocco and France match, in the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup.
And the newspaper "Mundo Deportivo" confirmed that tonight's match, which opens the quarter-finals between France and Morocco, will witness a new and very important development related to the video assistant referee technology.
FIFA is working on implementing a new system to ensure the effectiveness of this technology throughout the ninety minutes of the match, and if necessary, during the thirty additional minutes.
Both the video assistant referee and the alternate video assistant referee will be present at Boston Stadium tonight to follow the first quarter-final match. The video assistant referee will be the Uruguayan Leodan Gonzalez, while the alternate video assistant referee will be the Nicaraguan Tatiana Guzman.
This procedure ensures that the technology is not affected by any emergency that may arise in the video assistant referee system and the "VAR" room located at the International Broadcast Center (IBC) in Dallas.
In other words, in the event of a connection interruption, the video assistant referee and the alternate video assistant referee will be present in the stadium to conduct any necessary reviews, according to the video assistant referee technology protocol approved by FIFA.
The same applies if the field referee, Facundo Tello, needs to review a clip on the screen.
It is important to recall that FIFA regulations clearly stipulate that no match can be stopped due to a technical error in the video assistant referee technology. Therefore, this situation will never occur.
A match whose officiating crew will ultimately include six Argentinians.. The crew begins with the main referee, who will be accompanied by his assistants Juan Pablo Belatti and Gabriel Chadi.
As for the fourth and fifth referees, Dario Herrera and Cristian Navarro, they are also Argentinian, and they are joined by a sixth referee: Hernan Mastrangelo, the video technology referee.
It is worth noting that FIFA has been applying since the beginning of the tournament a system that requires video referees to be present at the International Broadcast Center (IBC) in Dallas, Texas, USA, and not inside the stadiums where the matches are held.
The entire officiating crew sits in a unified and technically equipped center in Dallas, receiving live and direct broadcasts from all tournament stadiums in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
However, in anticipation of any emergencies, two video crew referees were transferred to the Morocco and France match stadium, in anticipation of any emergencies.
