Introduction of VAR Lite in Ghana Premier League Underway-Kotey
Retired referee Alex Neequaye Kotey has revealed that there are advanced plans to introduce Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Lite into the Ghana Premier League in the near future.
Speaking at the launch of the 2024 Ghana Football Awards, where West Ham midfielder Mohammed Kudus was nominated for Male Footballer of the Year, Kotey discussed the initiative as a cost-effective alternative to the standard VAR system, which faces financial implementation challenges.
“We are working assiduously on that—providing VAR—we have not let it go. FIFA is trying to introduce a less costly VAR, which is the VAR Lite, so when the VAR Lite comes, we will see how best we can bring it on because that one doesn’t need a lot of cameras,” Kotey explained.
He acknowledged that the VAR Lite system has fewer cameras and lacks some features of the full VAR setup, but sees it as a significant step forward for the league.
“The only challenge is that you don’t get some features in the VAR Lite as compared to the full VAR, but of course, it is just a stepping stone,” he added.
Kotey, a long-serving match official, provided an assessment of officiating in the 2023-2024 Ghana Premier League season.
He described the season as having started on a positive note, with the hope of achieving better results in the upcoming season. Despite an initial strong performance, Kotey admitted that the quality of officiating dipped midway through the campaign.
“We haven’t been perfect. We still have more room to improve, so we will continue to work on them. We hope to be better in the coming year; we started on a very good note—refereeing was quite good. Somewhere along the line, they slacked a little bit, so we brought them back again and we helped to whip them back on their toes,” Kotey stated.
The Ghana Premier League 2023-2024 season is set to conclude on Saturday, June 15, with all matches taking place simultaneously at various league centers.
The introduction of VAR Lite is seen as a promising development for the league, aiming to enhance the fairness and accuracy of officiating in Ghanaian football.
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