Last season there were a raft of VAR controversies within Scottish football and Heart of Midlothian were on the wrong end of a few of them.

The technology is, however, here to stay and the Scottish FA's new head of refereeing Willie Collum is in the process of appointing a VAR manager.

Collum, who has been meeting Premiership managers and carrying out individual club visits, revealed there will be a "big focus" around handballs.

The handball law is currently one of the most controversial in football, leaving fans, players, managers, pundits and even referees confused.

The handball law

For the purposes of determining handball offences, the upper boundary of the arm is in line with the bottom of the armpit. Not every touch of a player’s hand/arm with the ball is an offence.

It is an offence if a player:

  • deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, for example moving the hand/arm towards the ball

  • touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised

  • scores in the opponents’ goal:

- directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental, including by the goalkeeper

- immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental

"There will be a big focus for us in terms of refereeing handballs and our interpretation of that," he told the SFA website. "After speaking to the referees, I also spoke to the managers and coaches of the Premiership clubs. The reason for going to them, first and foremost, was because of their direct involvement with VAR. I also told them what the referees were thinking moving forward, what we were thinking in terms of referee operations, and we got their perspective on some decisions.

"I feel like we’ve reached a consensus that will move things forward, in the right direction, around handball, VAR intervention and so on. Club visits will have a particular focus on law changes and handball interpretation."

He added: "We want to move towards a ‘football understanding’ of handball but I keep reminding everyone that we need to keep a balance with the Laws of the Game and the directives we get. We would like to approach it, a bit more, from a football expectation perspective."

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As well as improving decision making and the desire "to be clearer and consistent in terms of guidelines and where we are with VAR", Collum also revealed referees will try to implement one of the key factors from Euro 2024 whereby only captains are able to speak to the official.

"We’re definitely exploring the captain approach," he said. "Some trials have been proposed by IFAB. In the meantime, it’s a positive, for me, that the SPFL have agreed to adopt that approach from the opening day of the league season, across all the leagues and competitions within the SPFL. That will work well.

"Some people will be nervous and think we’re going to see a flurry of yellow cards but I think it’ll improve relationships between the referee and the players. It worked really well at UEFA EURO 2024 and I think it’ll work well for us here."