Freudfeld: VAR has worked fantastically well in Greece – When I accepted the proposal I spent sleepless nights

In its operation VAR in Greece was mentioned by Peter Freudfeld speaking to the Swedish “aftonbladet”.

In particular, the chief referee of KED emphasized that in our country VAR has worked fantastically well.

“We check and make sure everything is fine. We give instructions during the halves to the VAR referees and after the game I give them feedback with the referees and Life with the VAR team. VAR has worked fantastically well. VAR referees have made very important corrections and support the pitch referees. They have formed strong bonds. In Greece, VAR gives more correct decisions and removes a large part of the suspicion that used to exist against referees“, he initially reported.

Then, no, he stopped at his difficult start in Greece: “Olympiacos and Panathinaikos initially told me no. I do not know why. Maybe because I had been rejected before when Mark Clattenberg took the job. I hope all the teams have found now that I can handle the job. We want to be ourselves and work calmly and in peace. When I accepted the offer, I spent several sleepless nights.

I asked myself why should I accept a job that no one wants? My wife Anna was the one who pushed me and told me it was an opportunity I had to accept. I had a chaotic start. The first weekend I was in charge was the Olympiakos-Panathinaikos derby, I worked from my home in Eskilstuna. After 52 minutes a piece of dynamite fell on a player who was warming up. The derby was suspended. Then I began to wonder what I was doing here. Things got worse. During a volleyball derby in Athens, a police officer was so seriously injured by a naval flare that he later died».

Also, “aftonbladet” spoke to Life Lindberghwith the man in charge of VAR referees stressing that in Greece, Germany and Spain VAR works better than in the rest of the countries.

“It was a big step when foreign referees started to choose foreign referees. From then on there was little chance of influencing their decisions. After the following year, VAR came and it became even more difficult to influence it externally. Then there was an extra VAR referee on the pitch and another in the VAR center and on top of all that Peter and I were checking all the games, that everything was going well.

The teams have adapted, the process works better. There are some cases where the decisions take a little longer, but the fact that the decisions are correct has reduced the suspicion against referees that has almost disappeared in Greece“, he noted characteristically.