Football – referee: More speed and transparency in the Bundesliga

As a trained mechanical engineer, Knut Kircher is familiar with the fact that there is always fault tolerance on all technical progress. Nevertheless, for the managing director of Sport and Communication of Schiri GmbH of the German Football Association (DFB), it is undisputed that professional football with half-automated offside technology can look forward to an improvement in the new season. “The system is faster,” says Kricher. The director Ansgar Schwenken responsible for the game at the German Football League (DFL) promised on Tuesday at the DFB campus: “In our opinion, this brings a clear simplification.” The transparency and the speed of decision-making would be increased.

From head to toe

The video assistant (VAR) no longer decides on the monitor using tedious lines and places, but special cameras record the movements of the players and the ball for a new tracking technology. Every soccer player is assigned to 21 body points from head to toe – and in addition to the exact position determination, the playing moment of the ball is automatically recorded. At the latest the graphic representation should actually make any discussion superfluous.

But while nobody in athletics would doubt the target photo in a millimeter decision, football is still ticking differently. In the East derby of the 2nd Bundesliga in the 1: 2 between Dynamo Dresden and the 1st FC Magdeburg, FCM striker Martijn Kaars was found to be out of the sides before the supposed third goal, but Magdeburg coach Markus Fiedler did not want to recognize the picture delivered by the new method as evidence: “His legs are not one meter behind his opponent.” in the spirit of football. Swivel countered on Tuesday: “If a system with reliability indicates one centimeter away, it is offside.”

Costs for the clubs

The technology has already been used at the world and European championships of men and women. What worked first at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar took over series A in Italy in 2023, a year later La Liga in Spain and from April 2025 the English Premier League. The Bundesliga is the last top league in Europe. The costs covered by the clubs are “portable,” said Schwenken, without quantifying the millions.

The traceability of the VAR decisions is to be improved. In any case, nobody can suspect dark powers in the “Cologne Keller” because the control rooms will be housed in the Frankfurt DFB Academy from 2026.

In the future there will be announcements in all stages if the referee has looked at a scene on the monitor or a decision has changed after VAR intervention. For this, the feedback from spectators, referees, clubs and media partners was queried, with an approval of “80 to 90 percent”, as Schwenken explained.

The net season

However, added time will increase. A uniform regulation is to be used to “get lost time, not to bring in not wasted time,” said Schwenken. For each goal and for each exchange slot, 30 seconds are estimated. Injury treatments and Var checks come on top. On the first two game days of the second division, the added time of 4:26 minutes per half already rose to an average of 5:17 minutes. The goal was, explained Kircher, to increase the net season of around 60 minutes so far. “It is not so exorbitant much more, but there is a range to eleven, twelve minutes.”

This is to be improved, which is why the captains, trainers and referees will in future meet 70 minutes before kick-off in the Schiri cabin for a HandShake dialog. A joint workshop of all trainers and referees also serves at five bases on October 6th.

The “Refcam” conveys completely new perspectives: The special camera is used in the first and second division, the “Lighthouse Games” is used according to 20 to 50 “lighthouse games”, the pictures of which also serve marketing purposes. Overall, the referee has already gained a better reputation again, which in particular helps the amateurs. After years of falling, more impartial are used again. 61 027 referee whistled in Germany in the past season, a plus of around 3000 compared to the pre -season.