A new chapter in African football was opened when the Additional Assistant Referees (AAR) was used for the very first time in the semi-final matches of the ongoing Total U17 Africa Cup of Nations in Tanzania on Wednesday.

The development which has been approved by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) will be a key addition to refereeing in African football and will help in making better decisions as CAF is looking forward at standardizing African football.

“The law has been around since 2012 but it was yet to be implemented by CAF, we decided to use it this time and we are ready for it,” CAF Assistant Refereeing Manager Mamadou Haidarahe told www.cafonline.com.

“The main reason for the introduction of this system is to help referees in decision making especially in the penalty area. This will allow the other two assistant referees to concentrate on offside and other fouls,” he added.

This will increase the number of game officials in a single match from the usual four to six officials, the referee, two assistants and fourth official.

That team is now joined by two additional assistant referees who will see the additional referees positioned behind each goal to closely monitor incidents within the penalty area.

The experiment with additional assistant referees began at a UEFA European U19 Championship mini-tournament in Slovenia in the autumn of 2008.

In the 2009/10 season, UEFA Europa League matches were officiated, as part of the experiment, with the additional assistant referees.

IFAB unanimously approved the use of two additional assistant referees on July 5th 2012, after acknowledging the support they can provide in officiating matches, however since then CAF hadn’t yet implemented it.

Besides AAR, CAF is set to introduce Video Assistant Referees (VAR) and it will be first used in the forthcoming Total 2019 Africa Cup of Nations held in Egypt in June this year.