Zambia hosts groundbreaking VAR workshop as country prepares for Super League implementation

A Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Workshop kicked off in Lusaka on Monday, gathering 40 male and female referees for an intensive five-day training program.This historic workshop is the first of its kind in East, Central, and Southern Africa, marking a significant advancement in the region's adoption of VAR technology.The training is being led by global and regional experts, including FIFA IT Technology Support and COSAFA VAR specialist Ramy Gamal, FIFA VAR Instructor Carlos Astroza, and COSAFA Referees Manager Felix Tangawarima, who also serves as the VAR project manager.On the sidelines of the workshop, Tangawarima highlighted COSAFAs commitment to VAR, confirming that all COSAFA tournaments in 2024 will feature the technology.For this year 2025, all our tournaments in COSAFA will be done with VAR, he said. Zambia is the first country in the Central, East, and Southern zones to get the proper VAR project rollout, and we are going to be with the referees (in Lusaka) for the next five days, where we anticipate every referee will do a minimum of 25 hours of training.For a referee to be certified, they have to be trained and go through a minimum of 25 hours, Tangawarima added.He also emphasized the importance of the training program in preparing Zambian referees, as the Zambian Super League plans to introduce VAR in the upcoming season.Zambia intends to introduce VAR in the league in the coming seasons, and for them to be able to do that, we have to train as many referees as possible. We have 40 Super League referees who will be trained and certified in this groundbreaking VAR proper package. We started a pilot project for the (2023 Absa) Cup final of the Zambian game. We didnt use Zambian referees because we didnt have VAR-certified referees, explained Tangawarima.FAZ President Andrew Kamanga, who officiated at the opening ceremony, expressed his gratitude to COSAFA for bringing the initiative to Zambia.Please deliver this message to the COSAFA Executive that we are indeed very grateful that you have been able to come and support us with this initiative. There can be no successful implementation of VAR without trained personnel. This exercise is critical in ensuring that we are ready for the undertaking that we have signed up, Kamanga said.We are already doing a lot of work in our game to incorporate technology, as witnessed by the recent handover of Global Tracking System equipment for all our Super League teams for both men and women. All these developments are embedded in our 10-year strategic plan that we are calling Vision 2030, he added. Read Full Story