{"id":48043,"date":"2026-10-15T11:05:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=48043"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:05:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:05:03","slug":"safa-partners-with-fifa-to-launch-var-training-roadmap","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/safa-partners-with-fifa-to-launch-var-training-roadmap\/","title":{"rendered":"SAFA partners with FIFA to launch VAR training roadmap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South African Football Association (SAFA) is taking concrete steps toward introducing Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology in domestic football, following a fresh roadmap presented alongside the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>SAFA Chief Executive Officer Lydia Monyepao confirmed that association officials are meeting with representatives from FIFA and Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) this Thursday to kick off the referee training and certification phase.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The initiative follows delays after the sports ministry allocated $1.2 million to SAFA in March to support the rollout. Under the updated timeline, full referee certification will take between four to six months and will combine classroom theory with simulated match situations for match officials, video assistant referees, and assistant VARs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Monyepao noted that SAFA is building on an initial cohort of eight referees already trained through COSAFA, with plans to expand the local pool to cover domestic league fixtures.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":47821,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-48043","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"South Africa begins FIFA VAR training roadmap","published_date":"2026-10-15 11:04:32","news_description":"South Africa begins FIFA VAR training roadmap","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48045,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48043\/revisions\/48045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}