THE Scottish FA joined the other three British football associations to approve the use of video assistant referees on a permanent basis.

VAR will be used at the World Cup this summer and will be rolled out to football leagues across the world thereafter, marking a fundamental change to the way football is played.

It comes after a meeting of football’s lawmakers unanimously approved the most monumental change to the rules of the game at the top level despite teething issues exposed in English football.

The controversial VAR system allows referees to review major decisions and has already been rolled out for use in the Bundesliga and Serie A this season.

Trials have already shown it will have a fundamental effect on the game, but there is serious concern it will undermine referees on the pitch, interrupt the flow of the game and cause confusion for players and fans.

The International Football Association Board -  made up of the four home nations and Fifa –  made the decision to introduce VAR following a two-year trial period at its annual general meeting at Fifa’s headquarters in Zurich on Saturday.

Glasgow Times:

The Football Association was known to be in favour of VAR as well as the Irish FA. The Welsh FA had some reservations about the technology but the Scottish FA was known to be waiting until Saturday’s meeting to make its final decision.

But it emerged that the SFA joined the other three home nation football associations in supporting the VAR roll out.

The decision was unanimous, however, and was announced by the Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA the world governing body of football,after a slightly delayed meeting.

Video review can overturn a "clear and obvious error" by match officials involving goals, penalty awards, red cards, and mistaken identity. 

Now Fifa just need to go through the formality of including VAR in their competition rulebook at a meeting in Colombia later this month.

"As of today, video assistant referees are part of football and this is certainly very important news,'' said Mr Infantino, who chaired the meeting.

An IFAB statement read: "This landmark meeting, chaired by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, represents a new era for football with video assistance for referees helping to increase integrity and fairness in the game."

Glasgow Times:

However, European football's governing body UEFA has already stated it will not use VAR in the Champions League or the Europa League next season, while the Premier League is not expected to consider introducing it until 2019 at the earliest due to ongoing confusion about how it is implemented.

But it is not without its critics, which culminated in the system being branded “an absolute shambles” during Tottenham Hotspur’s FA Cup fifth-round replay win over Rochdale on Wednesday night.

The Scottish FA had said in January that it was open to using VAR but had no plans to implement the system in this season's Scottish Cup and said there were concerns about affordability.  But later indicated it VAR could be introduced for the quarter finals of  next season's Scottish Cup.

The SPFL, who administer the senior Scottish leagues and League Cup, has previously ruled out using goal-line technology, saying that the cost is prohibitive.

The decision was presented with the results of independent analysis conducted by Belgian university KU Leuven.

"I would say to the fans, players and coaches that it will have an impact, a positive impact," said Mr Infantino. "That is what the results of the study show.

"From almost 1,000 live matches that were part of the experiment, the level of the accuracy increased from 93% to 99%. It's almost perfect.

"I was pretty much against it a couple of years ago but I studied it.

"We have looked into all the details and benefits it can bring. Of course, we need to speed up the reviews and the communication to the referees that are applying it but also for the general public."

The Scottish FA declined to comment on Saturday.