FOLLOWING the Scottish FA’s meeting with managers from the Premiership in Perth, the general consensus from the conference seems to suggest that it might not be long before we see Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology implemented in the Scottish top flight.

SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell said that there is now “a real appetite to investigate VAR” and that the money is there in Scottish football, should Premiership clubs decide they want the technology installed.

“I think Scottish football can afford it,” Maxwell said. “The SPFL have an amount of money and most of that is distributed to the clubs. If an element of that has to be taken to cover the costs of VAR then that's a decision the clubs have to make.”

A lot of the Premiership’s bigger clubs have been fairly vocal about their support for VAR’s implementation but the issues begin when we look further down the league table. For clubs at the bottom end of the Premiership, VAR represents a costly exercise that they may only use for one season before it is no longer in applicable.

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Even if the Premiership decides to go ahead with the technological overhaul, it will be some time before clubs in the lower leagues can follow suit, if ever. This means that promotion to the top flight will come with an admission fee; probably not enough to cause too much of a financial headache, but not an insignificant sum either. Scottish football has been here before, and it didn’t turn out well. Old rules stated that clubs had to have a 10,000-seater stadium in order to compete in the top division, which only caused teams that had finished top of the second tier to remain there as their stadium didn’t meet the requirements for promotion. Others spent fortunes redeveloping their ground or building a new one outright, for little tangible reward.

If you’re the chairman of a club like Dundee, St Mirren or Hamilton, you may well understandably oppose the implementation of video technology. It would be used for as long as you’re in the top flight, but if you’re relegated, it becomes useless. Getting teams like these on board represents the biggest hurdle to the widespread installation of VAR and until they can be convinced that it’s a worthwhile investment, nothing will change.

Even putting these concerns to one side, there are still a few teething problems that must be addressed. Take the Scottish Cup, for example. If a Premiership side is drawn at home, would VAR be used then? If so, is that fair? If you’re a Championship or League One club - or a Premiership side playing away from home - then, quite simply, you’re playing under different rules.

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This undermines the integrity of the competition and there is only one obvious solution: until everybody has VAR, it cannot be used. The implementation must be uniform or not at all. Using it in the Premiership is fine, provided everyone is happy to, but the technology would have to remain solely in Scottish football’s top flight. As soon as some clubs have it and others don’t, the only fair thing to do is to restrict it to competitions where every club has the technology and resources available to implement it.

There are other parts of our game’s laws that would have to be rewritten in order to be conducive to video refereeing technology. An example that comes to mind took place just last week, during Marseille’s Ligue 1 fixture against Monaco. With the match all square at 1-1 with around 20 minutes left to play, Marseille’s Florian Thauvin scored to give his side the advantage. Both sets of players trotted back to the centre circle, and both managers made substitutions as a result of the goal.

But then, with Monaco ready to kick off again, there was a delay. The goal was referred to VAR and subsequently chopped off. From the coaches’ perspective, though, the damage had been done. The substitutions had been made and they couldn’t be undone. This might seem like a very specific incident to pick out, but it is an illuminating case that is worth consideration. Both managers thought a goal had been given and made changes accordingly. The goal was ruled void, but the changes remained. There is nothing in the rules about cancelling a substitution, because no-one had ever had to consider that a goal might be chopped off a minute or two after the fact.

Just like these substitutions, there are undoubtedly other small parts of the SFA rulebook that were written long before something like VAR was ever conceived and as a result will need updating. This is not an impossible task, but once VAR is eventually implemented there will almost certainly be small aspects of the game that will have been overlooked and the laws will require regular changes as issues become apparent in an ongoing process.

It seems inevitable that video technology will be introduced in Scotland at some point or another and while it has plenty of potential to raise the standard of officiating in the country, there are still a number of teething problems that require thoughtful consideration until it can be rolled out nationwide. Even once the top flight has it, there will need to be a clear definition of what competitions use it, and at which stage. And, of course, we must remember that while VAR aids referees in their decision-making, it is not a magic wand that can be waved to get the correct outcome. Many decisions still require interpretation and human error is a constant byproduct of subjectivity. Mistakes will still be made, but there will hopefully be fewer of them.

If Scottish football’s governing body can update its rules accordingly and ensure that the introduction of video technology is not too big a burden from a financial perspective, then there is no reason to believe the technology won’t be implemented in the near future at the summit of the Scottish game. It will likely be to the benefit of all concerned, but there remain a few issues that still need to be ironed out before VAR is fully implemented.