Uefa Tells Its VARs Diving Is Not Mistaken Identity

Uefa has told its video assistant referees that they must not treat potential simulation as mistaken identity, closing the door on the interpretation used at the 2026 World Cup. The instruction went out as officials gathered for the opening qualifying rounds of European competition this week. It means the experiment of using reviews to punish divers, which proved popular with many supporters at the World Cup, stops at the tournament's edge. The law is the same everywhere. What it means, it turns out, depends on who is reading it.

What the law tweak actually says

The International Football Association Board tweaked the VAR protocol effective from this summer. Under the change, a VAR can intervene to change a yellow or red card if the referee has incorrectly identified which team's player committed the offence. At the World Cup that wording was activated twice, and neither case looked much like the administrative correction the phrase suggests. First, a yellow card given to United States defender Tim Ream for a foul was overturned and switched to Paraguay's Miguel Almiron, for a dive. Then, more consequentially, Switzerland striker Breel Embolo was dismissed in the 72nd minute of the quarter-final against Argentina. Leandro Paredes had been booked for a reckless challenge, but the review showed the 29-year-old Embolo had initiated the contact. Already on a caution, he was shown a second yellow and sent off, five minutes after Switzerland had made it 1-1. Argentina won 3-1 after extra time, and are now in Sunday's final.

Supporters largely approved. A mechanism that catches a player winning a booking for an opponent by falling over feels like justice, and the World Cup decisions against Almiron and Embolo were read as football finally showing a willingness to go after simulation. The leagues who would have to run the system every weekend read it differently.

Why Uefa said no

Uefa's logic is procedural rather than moral. Mistaken identity, in its view, is a purely factual matter: the referee booked the wrong man, the VAR says so, and no trip to the monitor is required. Changing a foul into simulation is a subjective judgement, and in both the Almiron and Embolo cases the referee did have to visit the screen. Therefore, Uefa concludes, simulation is not mistaken identity, and its VARs should use the new law only when identity is genuinely the question.

The domestic leagues BBC Sport has spoken to were blunter. The use of mistaken identity for simulation had never been mentioned to them and arrived as a complete surprise, and one league said the interpretation could cause "chaos" at club level, with every yellow card in theory reviewable for a possible dive. There were concerns about the extra pressure on officials' initial decisions, and about the two-tier system the law creates: simulation could only be reviewed where a yellow card had been shown, so a player who embellished contact to win a free-kick without a booking would be untouchable even if a goal followed. Consistency on what counts as clear simulation was another worry. It is also striking that in months of briefings before the World Cup, Fifa's head of referees Pierluigi Collina illustrated the law with a handball from the Euro 2016 final, where Laurent Koscielny was booked for handball although it was Eder who had used his arm, and at no stage referenced simulation, the use that turned out to be the headline.

What still catches a diver

The instruction does not make diving invisible to VAR in Europe, it just narrows the entrances. Because the VAR can now intervene on incorrect second yellow cards, a dive that wrongly sends an opponent off for two bookings can be corrected, and simulation can still be penalised where it produces an incorrect straight red card or a penalty. The everyday booking-level dive, the Almiron case, goes back to being the referee's problem in real time. Uefa will also check incorrect corners, though only on the last touch, without the World Cup's additional look at offside in the build-up, and it has already rejected the World Cup practice of issuing red cards to players who cover their mouth in a confrontation, which accounted for Almiron and Ecuador's Piero Hincapie during the tournament.

The head referees of Uefa's 54 member nations meet at a summit next week to discuss VAR use, with mistaken identity on the agenda, and BBC Sport understands the domestic leagues are likely to follow Uefa in treating it as a factual review only. The Ifab, whose wording started all of this, was not willing to discuss the interpretation when contacted. Which leaves football in a familiar position: a law written in one room, applied one way in the summer, applied another way in the autumn, and clarified by everyone except its authors. The divers, for now, can breathe out.

Sources: BBC Sport.