Video Assistant Referees could be set to appear at the 2018 Russia World Cup

A decision will be taken on January 22 when FA Board officials meet in Zurich

Referees have recently come under heavy scrutiny from Premier League bosses

Brighton's FA Cup third round clash with Crystal Palace will see the first trial

Video Assistant Referees (VARs) could be set to appear in the Russia World Cup, with football chiefs also likely to soon give the go-ahead for the implementation of the technology in English football.

Officials from the International FA Board (Ifab) will meet in Zurich on January 22, for what will be an important judgement day for the sport.

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Those present will make an 'indicative decision' on whether video assistant referees (VARs) will be permitted in English football, as report the Times.

A January 22 decision date has been set to determine future use of Video Assistant Referees

English football will experiment with the system when Brighton play Crystal Palace in the FA Cup third round, for the first competitive trial of the system.

VARs have already been trialed on the continent, with usage in Italian and German football yielding positive results.

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David Elleray, the former referee who is Ifab’s technical director, has praised the trials of the game-changing technology, which have also produced promising results in the United States.

'We will have had approaching 1,000 matches which have used it one way or another,' said Elleray

The system has been trialed in Italian and German football, with largely positive results

Referee Mike Dean recently came under criticism from Arsene Wenger for a penalty decision

'Generally I think it has gone much better than people have anticipated and almost every week we get an inquiry from another league about using VARs.'

Referees have received growing criticism from Premier League bosses in recent weeks, with high profile events drawing attention to the need for technology to assist the man in the middle.

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Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger turned his attention to Mike Dean after he awarded a last minute penalty for what he believed to be a Calum Chambers hand-ball against West Brom.

The Gunners had to settle for a draw after Jay Rodriguez rattled home the late spot-kick, provoking Wenger to question Dean's judgement in the aftermath.

'I was not happy at all with the movement that the referee made to show why he gave the penalty, because that didn’t correspond at all with what happened,' said the Frenchman.

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'On that front, it’s a bit worrying,' he added.

What is video assistant referee (VAR)? The Video Assistant Referee is a system which involves several highly-trained match officials that have access to a range of different camera angles. The small team of qualified referees are watching the game away from the pitch, safely shut away in a room casting an eagle eye over every piece of play. When trialed by the Bundesliga, VARs were based externally in Cologne, as opposed to inside the match-day stadium. They communicate with the referee on the field of play via a two-way radio. In the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the VAR referees are all based in Moscow, whilst the game may be happening several hundred miles away. Here, the officials will have access to 33 different camera angles, including eight in super slow motion and four in ultra slow motion. The tech first reared its head on British shores when England faced Germany in a friendly at Wembley, following successful tests in Germany, Italy and the United States. How does a VAR decision get made? The referee must consult VAR — only then does the process of analysis of an incident begin. The VAR cannot simply review anything it wants during the match. The referee draws the outline of a TV screen in the air so everybody knows what's going on and that VAR is set to be used. They then wait to be told what to do, which sometimes includes going to review a decision themselves on an off-pitch monitor.