Think of it like a booth-initiated review.

by Savage, Around Ye Olde Colonial College, Monday, July 06, 2026, 08:18 (16 days ago) @ BillyGoat

Each match has a referee (fully qualified to be the center ref, also with additional VAR training) who has access to basically the entire TV truck's worth of video, etc. They review plays as they happen to make suggestions of anything that merits review.

Different competitions have different exact parameters here, but typically the reviewable items are either (a) matters of fact that the match ref got wrong (think offside or whether the ball scored before being saved/cleared) or (b) perceived clear and obvious errors by the match ref from a few different defined categories, e.g., penalties given/not-given and red cards given/not-given.

Depending on the competition, the "booth" may be on-site at the stadium or may be off-site at a central command center.

The VAR ref (or another official in the VAR booth) is in communication with the match ref and can inform them of a matter of fact overrule or recommend going to the screen for a review on a potential clear and obvious error.

Some leagues have even started doing behind-the-scenes / after-action reviews of VAR/ref interactions, which is good for transparency and interesting to see all the factors that go into it. Though, of course, these get trashed by folks who dislike the officiating in a league, want to see conspiracies everywhere, hate the premise of VAR, disliked the result for their team, etc., but despite the noise, they're still pretty interesting, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T24xCcL4Dog