AUSTRALIA — Australia's Football Federation admitted that the Video Assistant Referee technology (VAR) they used encountered a technical failure that led to a controversial goal. <br /><br />According to the federation, the incident took place at the grand final of Australia's A league between Melbourne Victory and Newcastle Jets earlier this month. <br /><br />When Victory was delivering the ball from a free-kick play, the software that VAR system provider Hawk-eye uses crashed, causing the cameras to partially lose 30 seconds of footage.<br /><br />During the glitch, three players in the Victory's outfit were already standing in offside position, and the referees did not signal offside either. <br /><br />This failure allowed Victory's players to take the chance at controlling the ball, which later led to the controversial goal that helped the team clinch the league title.<br /><br />Greg O'Rourke, the head of Australia's A-League said the technology failed on this occasion and the broadcast angles required were unavailable. They are working with Hawk-Eye's UK head office to prevent this from happening again.<br /><br />Hawk-Eye's Australian branch declined to comment on the glitch, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.<br /><br />VAR was introduced as a technology-based solution to correct human referees' errors when they need to make a decision in just split seconds.<br /><br />Last month, FIFA announced that Hawk-Eye will be the VAR system provider and will feature its camera prominently in all the FIFA World Cup fixtures in Russia this summer.
