From cockpit to VAR room: how aircraft pilots are helping Scottish referees prepare for new season

Ahead of the new Premiership season this weekend, the SFA head of referees Collum has sought external help as he tries to sharpen the use of video technology ahead of the new league season.

There can be no doubt that pilots and the air traffic controllers assisting them face some of the most pressurised situations known to man. And while some football fans may see the fortunes of their team as life and death, those in charge of aircraft often have to take actions that ensure the safety of the public.

Collum believes the sessions that his officials had with aviation experts can help them deal with the stresses of a high-profile VAR decision and keeping composure in the heat of the moment.

“We have had aviation experts in, pilots," explained Collum. "They are training pilots as well. They showed us good examples of critical situations, life and death situations. People think football is life and death, but it is not quite the same. But it is an intense environment and we wanted to know how people communicate there.

"What we really liked about it was that it showed us that sometimes the VARs are speaking and they are not really asking the right open question. They could be leading the AVAR. But the pilot is not asking the co-pilot questions that he is just going to agree with. You actually see some examples where they physically sit back. We showed a clip from a match in Scotland where the VAR sits back and the AVAR gets in about the screen looking at it. There was lots about communication.

"Another key thing was that nobody in a cockpit uses the words ‘I think’. It needs to be concrete, it needs to be ‘here is what it is actually showing, here is what the outcome is’. Rather than saying it is something that I am thinking, we need it to be more factual.”

Communication is key

The English FA have also enlisted external help from the aviation industry on the back of contentious moments involving VAR and with Martin Atkinson, a former Premier League referee, now in place at Hampden to help out officials as the nation's VAR manager, Collum believes all the right pieces of the jigsaw are in place.

“In England, there were a couple of high-profile decisions," continued Collum. "There was a lot of debate about the communication after a Spurs game against Liverpool. England was the first to say, ‘we need to have a real serious think about what is being said in the room'. It can’t just be a run-of-the-mill conversation, we need to be able to use the right phrases, we need to have the right processes’.

"What we are using through aviation - and from learning from other countries and what we have learned from our own experiences – is that you need robust processes. We definitely think that in England you can see evidence of that.

"In the short time that Martin has been in position, we are already seeing better evidence of that. If you had gone into the VAR room before Martin came in and talked about communication, it would have been really busy with people talking, saying too much. Now, if you go in you would think, ‘Something is not working right here because I am not hearing anything. But it is about speaking when you need to speak so that it is relevant. We also know that talking, talking, talking can make people tired. So we don’t want our VARs and AVARs being tired.”

Similarities in football and flying

In terms of some of the key learnings, Collum elaborated: "Nobody can deny that the pilots adrenaline is pumping and they are fearing, they’re frightened, they’re worried. It is about keeping calm because you have got a process and you know to follow that process. We want the same. When there are critical, difficult decisions for the VAR to make they have a process there.”

It wasn't just a one-way street as pilots and referees gathered in the same room. Some of what Collum and his team are doing was of use to the people more accustomed to using flight instruments than drawing offside lines.

“What was really interesting for us is they actually said that some of our clips would be good to train their pilots," explained Collum. "They were able to see good examples. They were also analysing a lot of clips where they said from a technical point of view they didn’t know what the right or the wrong decision was. But what they did say was, ‘Could there have been less talk? Could there have been a different approach? Could there have been a more open-ended question to the AVAR?’

"They see a lot of similarities between what is happening in the VAR room and the cockpit. Again it is not life and death, but in football, maybe even in the west of Scotland, it is up there.”

Collum won't stop at the aviation industry either. Any help his referees can get externally will be tapped into. “Martin has come from a police background," he added. "We don’t want to go way out there and way wide, but any industry that can help us, we would be keen to use it. I think a few guys were put off flying, but it was a good exercise.”

Roll on Saturday at 3pm when the 2025/26 Premiership campaign kicks off at Rugby Park. Collum will hope for no turbulence.