The biggest innovation of this season in Albanian football is the permanent VAR system center at the “House of Football”, a major investment by the Albanian Football Association that has now become fully operational for “Abissnet Superiore” and First Division matches.
The VAR center was visited today by the President of the AFA, Armand Duka, who closely inspected this important investment, which aligns with the standards of top European football associations.
After the visit, President Duka gave a statement to fshf.org, emphasizing that the new VAR system center is a significant step in the federation’s strategy to modernize and improve refereeing in Albania. The head of Albanian football noted that the new system, licensed by FIFA and used by the majority of European associations, offers better working conditions for referees and higher-quality video, aiming for fairer decisions and fewer disputes.
“The investment AFA has made in this centralized VAR system is a continuation of the Association’s strategy to improve, modernize, and ensure more accurate refereeing decisions. The system is modern, FIFA-licensed, using EVS technology, which is employed by 80% of European associations. This is the same VAR assessment method used by all the developed associations.
We started with mobile VAR vans, and clearly this is a much bigger investment than the first. I’m very confident that it will help — referees now have a much more comfortable environment, away from pressure, and are calmer when making the right decision. Based on the tests we’ve done, the video quality is also much better than what we had with the vans.
Now we are in the new season with a new system. I hope we’ll see fairer decisions, fewer disputes — although, of course, we will never fully eliminate controversies,” said President Duka.
