- Oct 17, 2008
- 14,526
I’ve seen numerous cases of the referee stopping open play to review a VAR incident.But they did stop play for this one? So that clearly doesn't matter.
Normally this because the ball hasn’t gone out of play naturally, and enough time has passed for VAR officials to review the incident and deem it worthy of review. This was all going on while the ball was in play, and because so much time had passed without a “natural break in play” the referee was advised to stop the game by VAR.
What was unique in this case, is the VAR official then appeared to explain the situation at length before sending him to the screen. Then another long wait while he reviewed the footage, before it was finally given.
Normally that extra on-field step is skipped given the amount of time VAR had to review the incident while play on ongoing.