Football podcast on video evidence: “It must also be clear to the referees that you pay a price for the VAR”

The first Bundesliga matchday after the winter break showed that decisions made by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) will continue to provide material for discussion in 2026. During Hamburger SV’s 2-1 defeat at SC Freiburg, there were two scenes after which the VAR was discussed: the creation of Vincenzo Grifo’s penalty and the circumstances surrounding the winning goal by Igor Matanovic.

Does VAR harm the referees or the way they are dealt with and their decisions? Are the referees on the pitch still the boss or are they sitting in front of a screen? And why is the topic still so popular when the hit rate is now generally high?

Moderator Anna Dreher discusses these and other questions in the new episode of “And Now to Sport” with football experts Martin Schneider and Christof Kneer. Both recently interviewed the video referee Pascal Müller, who has been sitting in the Cologne basement almost every week for six years and has insights that are only available to a small circle.

The football podcast South German newspaper appears every Monday on current football topics. You can find all episodes on iTunes, Spotify, RTL and all other common podcast apps. In this text we explain how you can listen to our podcasts. You can find our podcasts at www.sz.de/podcast. You can reach the editorial team of this podcast via [email protected].