Football fans in Europe are not even halfway through their 2025/26 domestic campaigns, but here we are in very early December with further rule tweaks and changes being floated by the powers that be as Gianni Infantino has a desire to see them implemented for the upcoming 2026 World Cup that will be hosted in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The changes being proposed by Infantino and the International Football Association Board (Ifab) concern the use of Video Assistant Referee technology for corners. It might come as a surprise to some fans but despite the fact that the expansion of the useless, inconsistent and wildly open to interpretation use of VAR has been summarily rejected by domestic league associations as they are already wildly and acutely aware of the regular delays it causes, Fifa intends to push it through regardless. That means that it will be back on the Ifab calendar in their January meeting, and undoubtedly Fifa will end up getting their way again.
For fans tracking odds and predictions, football betting on 7bet offers insights that make following trends easier without taking away the joy of simply watching the drama unfold. For fans who like a flutter, it will be worth watching the odds on VAR corners coming into play for 2026/27 as these things always follow a similar path.
Despite a plethora of recent changes that have had fans pulling their hair out and questioning how 'clear and obvious' corrections and steps towards semi automated offsides still regularly see five minute delays as finger nails are measured, many will be pleased to hear that Ifab recently agreed to expand VAR to cover incorrectly shown second yellow cards that lead to a sending off. This was a flaw with no appeal allowed, but many will also point to the recent 'red or no red' for a stamp or double footed tackle controversies and wonder if certain players (and teams) will get away with even more now based on their name.
As Fifa push forward with their new corner trial to apply pressure to force the change through, they will no doubt argue that the semi automated approach would be the way to progress this for speed purposes, however, they will be many fans who look at the NFL and wonder how long it will be before football has two 45 minute periods of stoppages with 15 minutes of play in the middle and matches will now take three to four hours to complete.
Fifa's head of referees, Pierluigi Collini, actually wants to go further than this and points to an incident in the 2016 European Championship final as being proof of how quickly any errors can be corrected, but frankly if we are going back nine years to provide proof of concept and we can all pick out incidents that physically show from last weekend alone that quick decisions still take going on 20 minutes, then like most referee's, he does not really have a leg to stand on.
VAR remains a polarising issue.
Referee's have always made mistakes, VAR has not fully improved them or their accuracy as now they can be swayed by which angle is favoured, the speed at which an incident is shown and how it is paused.
