Fifa have described refereeing decisions at this World Cup as “very, very close to perfection” following the introduction of video assistant refereess and will consider widening the system in future competitions so that viewers can also hear the live deliberation between officials.

Pierluigi Collina, the chair of Fifa’s refereeing competition, and his team have assessed all 48 group matches and, of the 335 incidents that were reviewed by VAR, said that the 14 changes of decision had lifted the percentage of correct outcomes from 95 per cent to 99.3 per cent.

That would still mean accepting that two reviewed decisions were wrong and, while Collina would not get into individual incidents, specifically the off-the-ball controversies in England’s 6-1 win against Panama, he did suggest that this match had prompting a further clamp-down. “We would have prefered to speak of 100 per cent but 99.3 per cent is something that is very very close to perfection and things have been fine-tuned based on what is occurring,” he said.

Massimo Busacca, Fifa’s director of referees, interjected to say that the clashes between Jesse Lingard and Panama’s Gabriel Gomez, including when the England winger was struck by an elbow in the face, was “not a black and white situation” and that there had so far been not one major error. “After 48 games, we don’t have a single scandal in a very important competition,” he said. “VAR is also a very good source of prevention and my impression is that the players understood this.”