La Liga Set to Utilise Video Assistant Referee Technology From 2018/19 Onwards

La Liga is set to become the next big European league to implement video assistant referee technology from next season.

That is according to the head of Spain's football authorities, Juan Luis Larrea, who told Spanish radio station Cadena SER (h/t Sky Sports) that Spain's top flight would follow in the footsteps of Serie A and Bundesliga with the technology from 2018/19 onwards.

Video assistant refereeing (or VAR) has been tried and tested at plenty of international and domestic competitions across the globe, and Larrea said that it was inevitable that La Liga would utilise the technology in the very near future.

Valerio Pennicino/GettyImages

He said: "For next season. That is our intention. Technology is now coming into football and you have to accept it."

Larrea expects VAR to be present at around 70 matches across the Iberian peninsula over the course of the next nine months ahead of being successfully integrated into La Liga's matches for the start of next term.

VAR has been used in countries such as the Netherlands, Australia and Brazil so far and was put into practice at the FIFA Club World Cup last December.

The technology, which can be used to help match officials determine goals, red cards, penalty incidents and cases of mistaken identity, has already drawn criticism from a number of key figures in the game.

Cristiano Ronaldo was left unimpressed by the "confusing" nature of the programming in the 2-0 win over Club America 10 months ago. Juventus duo Max Allegri and Gianluigi Buffon, meanwhile, have also called for VAR to not be used in football as it would slow down the pace of matches.

La Liga is the only top five European league that does not include VAR's sister technology - goal line technology - after the Spanish football federation deemed it to be "too expensive" to install.

That could end up changing in the future, particularly with the introduction of VAR, but is not expected to precede VAR itself.