Will there be VAR at the 2026 World Cup?

The 2026 World Cup is almost here and the tournament will make history as the first edition to have 48 teams in action and the first edition hosted by three different countries — Canada, Mexico and the United States.

As a result, there will be a huge focus on refereeing decisions at the World Cup and a total of 170 match officials have been appointed, including 52 on-field referees.

The video assistant referee (VAR) has become a controversial part of the game since it was first introduced in 2016 and it has been used at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Here, Sports Mole answers whether VAR will be used at the 2026 edition of the tournament.

Will there be VAR at the 2026 World Cup?

© Imago

VAR will be used throughout the tournament, with FIFA appointing 30 specialist video match officials, including Premier League referee Jarred Gillett.

Those specialist officials will support the on-field referee by using video footage to review incidents and offer advice to their colleagues.

The 2018 World Cup in Russia was the first time VAR was used at a World Cup, with FIFA stating after the group stage that 95% of decisions were made correctly on the field and the influence of VAR increased that success rate to 99.3%.

"We have always said that VAR doesn't mean perfection - there could still be the wrong interpretation or a mistake - but I think you would agree that 99.3% is very close to perfection," FIFA's referees committee chairman Pierluigi Collina said at the time.

Will there be any changes to VAR at the 2026 World Cup?

© Iconsport / Gepa

A number of changes have been made ahead of the World Cup, with VAR set to be given the power to intervene on corners and yellow cards in addition to penalties, red cards and goals.

The International Football Association Board (Ifab) approved proposals at their annual general meeting that will allow VAR to get involved if it feels a corner or a second yellow card has been given incorrectly.

Semi-automated offside technology will also be used at the World Cup, which should speed up offside checks and make them more accurate, while goal-line technology will be used to help referees decide whether a goal has been scored or not.

Countdowns will also be introduced for goal kicks, throw-ins and substitutions in a bid to cut down on time wasting.

Former assistant referee Darren Cann, who worked as an official at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, told BBC Sport of the changes: "With Ifab ratifying the use of VAR to check the validity of corner kicks at the World Cup, other competitons may follow suit - provided the review can be completed immediately and without delaying the restart.

"That rider is important as the flow of the game is so integral, and further delays would not be welcome. In practice, corners can almost always be quickly checked before they are naturally taken - as we saw during the successful trial at the Arab Cup in December.

"Having spent many hours sitting next to video assistant referees watching dozens of matches, I can say it is a slick, seamless process to quickly ascertain that the corner was correctly awarded by the on-field referee team (or otherwise). Ifab and Fifa - understandably - want to avoid a situation where a wrongly awarded corner results in a goal being scored.

"As 99% of corners can quietly be checked in the background with no delay to the match, it is a sensible solution and could potentially prevent a country from being knocked out of this summer's World Cup as a result of a wrongly awarded corner."

Every referee at the 2026 World Cup

• Ramon Abatti (Brazil)
• Omar Al Ali (United Arab Emirates)
• Yusuke Araki (Japan)
• Omar Abdulkadir Artan (Somalia)
• Pierre Atcho (Gabon)
• Dahane Beida (Mauritania)
• Juan Gabriel Benitez (Paraguay)
• Juan Calderon (Costa Rica)
• Raphael Claus (Brazil)
• Ismail Elfath (United States)
• Espen Eskas (Norway)
• Alireza Faghani (Australia)
• Drew Fischer (Canada)
• Cristian Garay (Chile)
• Katia Garcia (Mexico)
• Mustapha Ghorbal (Algeria)
• Alejandro Hernandez (Spain)
• Dario Herrera (Argentina)
• Abdulrahman Al Jassim (Qatar)
• Jalal Jayed (Morocco)
• Campbell-Kirk Kawana-Waugh (New Zealand)
• Istvan Kovacs (Romania)
• Francois Letexier (France)
• Ning Ma (China)
• Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)
• Adham Makhadmeh (Jordan)
• Szymon Marciniak (Poland)
• Maurizio Mariani (Italy)
• Hector Said Martinez (Honduras)
• Amin Mohamed (Egypt)
• Oshane Nation (Jamaica)
• Glenn Nyberg (Sweden)
• Michael Oliver (England)
• Kevin Ortega (Peru)
• Tori Penso (United States)
• Yael Falcon Perez (Argentina)
• Joao Pinheiro (Portugal)
• Cesar Ramos (Mexico)
• Andres Rojas (Colombia)
• Wilton Sampaio (Brazil)
• Sandro Schaeerer (Switzerland)
• Ilgiz Tantashev (Uzbekistan)
• Anthony Taylor (England)
• Gustavo Tejera (Uruguay)
• Facundo Tello (Argentina)
• Abongile Tom (South Africa)
• Khalid Al Turais (Saudi Arabia)
• Clement Turpin (France)
• Jesus Valenzuela (Venezuela)
• Slavko Vincic (Slovenia)
• Felix Zwayer (Germany)