Introduced 15 months ago at the start of a two-year experimental period, the video assistant referee, or VAR, was meant to iron out football refereeing mistakes. But the recent Confederations Cup in Russia provided plenty of evidence of how far VAR, which reviews decisions made by the referee with the use of video footage, has to go before it can live up to its billing of maximum benefit, minimum interference.

In the final between Germany and Chile, VAR should have determined that Chile defender Gonzalo Jara should have been red carded for elbowing German forward Timo Werner in the face. Serbian referee Milorad Mazic asked for a video replay, a crucial moment that could have defined the outcome. Nearly three minutes passed before a decision was reached — the foul was a yellow card offence when the punishment was clearly a red card.

It was the fourth major controversy involving VAR after Chile were not awarded a penalty following a foul. During Germany’s clash with Cameroon in the group stages the ref sent off the wrong player after watching a replay. And in Mexico’s game against New Zealand, there was a long delay, then another, as the referee rewatched a scuffle among a group of players.

VAR’s original mandate, as stated by the International Football Association Board, the body in charge of the laws of football, was two-fold - to achieve 100 percent accuracy, while not “destroying the essential flow” of the game. It has achieved neither. At the Confederations Cup, there were long waits, mistaken identity, confusion and errors. Players and fans were too often in the dark about what was happening.

Many VAR controversies relate to the relative lack of communication of what is being said between the referee and his video assistant, and the delays to the game being caused by the reviews. Other sports, including tennis and American football, have natural breaks, and so breaks for reviews have become the norm, but that is not the case with football.

In, for example, cricket and rugby, which have employed similar systems over the past two decades with plenty of success, the discussions of umpires and referees are broadcast, and the replays are shown on a big stadium screen. With VAR there is still an element of secrecy about the operation that frustrates many. It should be clarified how and when VAR can be used and allow fans to listen in if it is going to win over skeptics.

There is also the flow of football. Football’s fast fluency is why it is the most popular sport in the world. Five-minute stoppages for decisions are not why people love the game.

Furthermore, some instances like offsides, tackles, penalties and handballs are hard to spot by television pundits even with the benefit of slow-motion replays and from different angles. If the answers are not clear to them, it won’t be to VAR either.

VAR won’t solve those grey areas, subjective decisions that will always be debated. Then again, it was never intended to do that. The purpose of VAR is to avoid big mistakes, the ones that are remembered years later as having affected the outcome of a final match or a championship. It is not meant to rule on everything. Some things remain open to interpretation, which lends a certain mystique to football. Human error has always been part of the game.

VAR has its backers, none more prominent than FIFA supremo Gianni Infantino who has publicly supported the use of video replays and looks set to implement the system at next year’s World Cup.

The Confederations Cup controversies served to intensify, perhaps unfairly, the attention being heaped upon a technology in its infancy. VAR is still a work in progress. There are obvious problems that need to be addressed – the speed of communication and decisions. But in time it should improve.