Belgium's second-tier Challenger Pro League will scrap the idea of full VAR coverage next season and instead hand referees' decisions over to a coach-driven challenge system, becoming one of the first senior men's competitions in the world to test it in a full domestic season.
The system, known as Football Video Support (FVS), flips the usual VAR model on its head. Rather than a video assistant referee proactively scanning replays for every goal, penalty shout and red card, it is the coaches on the touchline who decide whether a decision is worth contesting.
Each coach will get two challenges per match, with a third available should the game go to extra time. To use one, a coach makes a rotating-finger gesture and hands a review card to the fourth official, who relays the request to the referee. The referee then goes to a pitchside monitor to review the footage before making a final call.
Reviews are limited to four categories: goals, penalty-box incidents, direct red cards, and cases where a card has been shown to the wrong player. If the original decision is upheld, the coach loses that challenge for the rest of the match; if it is overturned, they keep it in reserve.
Belgian Pro League chief executive Lorin Parys explained the move as a practical one rather than a philosophical rejection of VAR. Running a full video assistant referee setup across every fixture in a second division, he said, simply is not financially realistic — the same reasoning that has kept the Dutch second tier without VAR altogether. The aim, in his words, is not to leave clubs and supporters at the mercy of officiating errors just because the top-flight technology is out of reach.
FVS is not a Belgian invention. The concept was developed for futsal and made its first official appearance at the 2021 FIFA Futsal World Cup in Lithuania, having already been tested in Spain's domestic futsal league. It has since crossed over into 11-a-side football, with trials at FIFA youth tournaments including the 2024 Blue Stars/FIFA Youth Cup and the 2024 FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup.
On the professional club stage, Italy's Serie C began testing FVS in October 2024, and Spain's Liga F — the country's top women's division — adopted it for the current 2025-26 season. Canada's domestic top flight has trials pencilled in for 2026, and Germany's federation, the DFB, has signalled openness to introducing the system domestically.
The Challenger Pro League's adoption pushes FVS further into the mainstream of men's senior football than it has gone before, and will be watched closely by other cash-strapped second and third divisions weighing up whether full VAR is worth the cost — or whether a cheaper, coach-led compromise can deliver similar accuracy without the price tag.
The comparison being drawn locally is with challenge systems already familiar in other sports: tennis players contesting line calls, or ice hockey coaches asking for a review, both operating on a similar use-it-or-lose-it principle rather than constant official oversight.
