The VAR has been a talking point almost every week this season with many coaches and players criticising the new system.

Wilson acknowledges the VAR is taking far too long to review decisions but feels it is heading in the right direction in the long run.

“I think that some of the criticism we’ve received is unjustified,” FFA's Director of Referees told FourFourTwo.

“I think there needs to be some perspective on it. It’s not like we’re seeing four or five reviews a match, there is one review in every four or five matches.  

“I can understand the frustrations and it’s frustrating for us as well. I think the VAR can work, so we want to prove that and taking too long to make decisions doesn’t shine a bright light on the system.

“We want to get the decision correct, the primary objective is to correct clear errors, but we’re also conscious we have to do that in a timely manner which is accepted by the footballing public.

“The decisions we have made so far are correct. It’s a matter of now trying to do it quicker, such as reducing the number of on-field reviews which takes up a lot of time.”

Wilson and O'Rourke announce the VAR implementation in April

The VAR was brought in towards the end of the 2016/17 season and A-League and W-League boss, Greg O’Rourke, made it clear he had no problem with Australia leading the way with the technology.

The FFA released a statement in October acknowledging the review time was “unacceptable” in Sydney FC’s 2-0 win over Perth Glory, when it took over almost four minutes for the VAR to confirm a penalty.

The A-League referees were able to trial the VAR in practice games before it was implemented and Wilson admitted he did not envisage there would be long stoppages in games.

“The guidelines say it’s more important to be accurate than to set a time limit on it,” he said.

“Hypothetically, if we were to set a time limit of 40 seconds and after 50 seconds the VAR saw it was a clear error, would football people accept we got the wrong decision just for the sake of 10 seconds?

“Even if you had it at two minutes and after two minutes and 10 seconds, you realised the ball crossed the line and it was a goal, would people accept us giving up after two minutes if it may only take another 10 seconds to get the correct decision?

“When there’s only 20 people watching a practice match, there’s less pressure on the VAR and they can feel they can make a quicker decision.

“When there’s a big crowd and everybody is waiting, they may take a bit more care to get the right decisions, so we didn’t really have any examples of decisions taking two minutes to get a conclusive result in training.

“Obviously that environment isn’t as intense as an A-League match and we couldn’t replicate some of the scenarios we’ve seen this season.”

Inside the VAR room...

Wilson said he hopes the VAR will stick around next season.

A number of coaches have berated the VAR for being ineffective and Wilson said all feedback would be taken on board.

“Some individual decisions along the way could’ve been different and we could’ve intervened in some situations where we’ve sat back,” he said.

“Players and coaches in the A-League have had an opportunity to give feedback to us and an opportunity to complete a survey to give their views on how the VAR is going.

“That’ll get thrown into the data analysis as part of this world wide project.”

And as for the argument the VAR takes the romance out of the game, Wilson said the system was important in case there was a major refereeing error.

“It takes away, potentially, the discussion points on a Monday morning on contentious decisions,” Wilson said.

“The traditionalist may like that part of football, but they can argue about things that are 50-50 or disagree with the ref’s decisions.

“It does change the game, but the whole point is it changes the game for the better, we get the correct outcomes and teams aren’t losing games on the back of refereeing decisions. Hopefully the neutrals see that as a good thing.”