VAR: Soccer’s screen saver or blurring the picture?

Two cramped rooms in a Moscow suburb could make or break countries’ dreams of World Cup glory.

This World Cup tournament will be the first to use video reviews, standard practice in many other sports around the world, but an abomination to some football fans who see it as killing the game’s soul.

Deep in the bowels of Fifa’s international broadcast centre, just outside the Moscow city limits, are two rooms decorated in blue-and-red World Cup branding. Along each wall are places for four Video Assistant Referees and 15 screens capable of showing 33 camera angles. It’s all ready for the first World Cup game to use the VAR system tomorrow when Russia plays Saudi Arabia.