Behind the scenes: State of the art VAR facilities

Premier League officials operate VAR from a stateoftheart bespoke facility at Stockley Park. The Referees and Assistant Referees in Select Group 1 work as Video Assistant Referee and Assistant Video Referee respectively from the newlycreated space on all matchrounds in the top flight in England. Investment through the Elite Referee Development Plan is enabling enhancements across all aspects of refereeing, which includes this new home designed to provide an elite environment for VAR teams to best support the onfield officials. The facility includes preparation and debrief areas for pre and postmatch and the VAR Hub, as well as an elite conditioning space and a designated recovery area for the officials to maintain their optimum physical training in line with schedules. Following consultation with football stakeholders, PGMOL subsequently worked closely with partners Instinct Laboratory, IMG and Populous on the creation and design, technical and build of the facility.