Premier League clubs are poised to reject the introduction of video technology into the world’s richest league next season.

The 20 top-flight teams will meet on Friday to decide whether to use the video assistant referee system in the competition from the start of the 2018-19 campaign.

Ahead of their quarterly shareholders’ meeting, clubs were anticipating that not enough of them would vote in favour of VAR in a ballot that requires a two-thirds majority.

Barring a shock outcome, they were instead expected to approve the expansion of non-live trials, first revealed by the Daily Telegraph, to include entire rounds of matches.

Friday’s debate will be preceded by a presentation by the managing director of Professional Game Match Officials Ltd, Mike Riley, but the Premier League executive will make no recommendation to club executives on how to vote.

VAR has been trialled in the FA Cup credit: Getty images

Several of those executives are publicly opposed to VAR coming into the competition next season after witnessing live trials in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup which have been dogged by controversy.

Some also want to wait until after the World Cup before reaching a decision after Fifa voted to make it the first major competition to use video technology following its inclusion in the Laws of the Game.

In an interview published in this month’s edition of the Fifa magazine, the governing body’s president, Gianni Infantino, said he was braced for VAR controversies in Russia.

“I am sure that soon we will reach a stage in which VARs are part and parcel of the game and its flow,” he said.

“Right now, while technology is still a novelty in football, every single incident draws attention and is dissected like an anomaly - unlike the many seconds that we have grown used to wasting, say, in between free-kicks or throw-ins.

Gianni Infantino expects VAR controversy at the World Cup credit: AFP

“Will there still be mistakes? Absolutely. Unavoidable ones. An important component of football refereeing is subjective, and for that we will always have to count on human judgement, which is fallible by nature - even more so when under enormous pressure.

“However, we have an obligation to provide match officials with all of the tools they need to help them take decisions as accurately as possible.

“And, yes, we will be ready for controversy. Whenever people care about something as much as they do about football, there will always be discussion.

“Football could either expose itself to a brand new controversy - arising from a willingness to improve the game - or settle for an existing, inert one. I am happy we chose the former.”

Friday's Premier League meeting will also witness the resumption of formal discussions over the distribution of the competition’s overseas television rights almost six months after the ‘Big Six’ clubs were thwarted in their bid to grab a greater share of that cash.