VAR changes explained by Mike Riley and four new referees added for 2021/22

Contact now should prove insufficient in itself when awarding penalties for tangles inside the area and the use of VAR in the European Championship is being heralded as ensuring there is less intervention to enable the game to maintain its flow.
“The principles we established are the referee should look for contact and establish clear contact, then ask if that contact has a consequence, and then has the player used that contact to try to win a foul or win a penalty,” Riley said. “It’s not sufficient to say ‘yes there’s contact.’

“I think partly we got into that frame of mind by the forensic analysis that went on in the VAR world. Contact on its own is only part of what the referee should look for. Consider consequence and the motivation of the player as well.
“We’ll take the positives from the Euros. Raising the threshold is a good thing, as is making sure the VAR only intervenes where we’ve got clear and obvious evidence. It’s not going to be same experience but those principles and advantages we can harness for the benefit of Premier League football.”