There's nothing quite like the silence of 50,000 fans staring at a giant screen waiting for a VAR call to come back. For broadcasters, it's dead air. For supporters in the stadium, it's an information vacuum. For the player whose celebration is on hold, it's the longest minute of their season.
So how long do these reviews actually take? The published data — across the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, and FIFA's elite tournaments — paints a more nuanced picture than "VAR is slow." Some reviews finish in 15 seconds. Others legitimately need three minutes. The variation is almost entirely explained by the type of incident, and most fans don't realise how short the average actually is.
The headline numbers (2024/25 → 2025/26)
The Premier League's published VAR data and FIFA's tournament reports give the following ballpark averages:
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Analyze a play free → 25 free credits · no card required| Incident type | Average review time |
|---|---|
| Offside (with SAOT) | 15–25 seconds |
| Goal/no-goal — ball out of play | 30–60 seconds |
| Penalty — clear handball / foul | 60–90 seconds |
| Penalty — marginal contact | 90–150 seconds |
| Red card — violent conduct review | 120–180 seconds |
| Red card — serious foul play (high boot, lunge) | 90–180 seconds |
| Mistaken identity | 60–120 seconds |
Two takeaways jump out. First, offside reviews are now under 30 seconds on average thanks to Semi-Automated Offside Technology — the kicked-ball sensor plus the skeletal tracking system reduces the human work to a confirmation step. The pre-SAOT average was 50–60 seconds.
Second, the long ones are the inherently subjective ones. A red card for violent conduct requires the on-field referee to walk over to the pitchside monitor, watch the incident from two or three angles at normal and slow speed, and decide whether the contact rises to a sending-off. That's not a technology problem — it's a judgement problem, and rushing it produces worse calls.
What's actually happening during a VAR review
Most reviews have four stages. The longer ones are long because the on-field review (stage 3) is needed.
Stage 1: Silent check (always)
The VAR has watched the incident live and is already pulling angles before the referee even signals for a review. For ~80% of incidents, the VAR confirms "no clear and obvious error" within 5–15 seconds, communicates that to the on-field ref, and play continues. The audience never knows a check happened.
Stage 2: Communication
For the remaining 20%, the VAR tells the on-field ref a review is needed. The ref signals the screen and walks toward the monitor. Add 10–30 seconds.
Stage 3: On-field review (OFR)
The slow part. The referee watches 2–4 angles, sometimes more. IFAB's guidance is to keep this under 90 seconds where possible. In practice, complicated calls take longer — and the on-field review is the single biggest contributor to total review time.
Stage 4: Decision communication
The ref signals the verdict, communicates with both captains, and play restarts. 10–20 seconds.
For a "quick" offside (no OFR needed), the total is stages 1 + 4 = 15–25 seconds. For a marginal red card with OFR, you get all four stages = 2+ minutes.
Why marginal handballs take longest of all
In every published data set, marginal handball calls produce the longest reviews. The reasons compound:
- Multiple frames matter. The ref needs the frame of contact AND the frame of arm position. Sometimes 4–5 frames before/after to track arm motion.
- The "unnatural position" judgement is subjective. Two competent referees can look at the same frame and disagree.
- The IFAB language has been rewritten three times since 2019. Even elite refs sometimes hesitate to apply the current version.
- Multi-stage check. Was there a deliberate handball anywhere in the build-up? Was there a goal scored directly from a hand? Multiple Law 12 clauses can apply, each requiring its own check.
This is also why these are the calls fans complain about most — long delays and contested outcomes. The 2026 IFAB tweak narrowing accidental-handball-leading-to-goal should reduce the second of those, but the first will remain because the underlying judgement is still subjective.
The 2026 reforms targeting time-wasting
IFAB's 2026 AGM passed two changes specifically aimed at the other kinds of dead time in football, not VAR itself:
- 5-second restart rule on throw-ins and goal kicks — possession changes if the ball isn't back in play within 5 seconds.
- 10-second substitution rule — substituted players must leave the pitch within 10 seconds of being called off.
These don't shorten VAR reviews, but they target the late-game stalling fans associate with "VAR slowing the game down." Combined with SAOT cutting offside reviews to 20 seconds, the total dead time per match is dropping even though individual subjective reviews aren't getting faster.
The "long review" myth
Public perception is that VAR reviews regularly drag for 3+ minutes. The data says otherwise: the vast majority of all VAR checks complete in under 30 seconds and the fan never sees them happen. What fans remember is the small handful per season that needed a full on-field review on a marginal call — and those do take 2+ minutes, because the judgement legitimately requires it.
A 3-minute marginal handball review isn't a system failure. It's the system working — taking the time to get a subjective call right rather than guessing.
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OURVAR.AI is an independent AI Video Assistant Referee. Frame-by-frame reasoning, IFAB Laws cited on every verdict.