VAR ‘making a mockery of the Premier League’, says ex-referee after ‘embarrassing’ weekend
An ‘embarrassing’ weekend of VAR controversy has ‘made a mockery’ of the Premier League, according to a former top-flight referee.
It was another dramatic weekend of Premier League football, with Liverpool dropping points to Manchester United, Tottenham rescuing a draw against bottom-of-the-table Watford and both Leicester and Aston Villa enjoying late victories.
But VAR has stolen the headlines again having played a huge part in all those results, with fans, managers, players and pundits all raising further complaints about the newly-introduced technology.
Jurgen Klopp was furious after Marcus Rashford’s first-half goal at Old Trafford was allowed to stand despite an apparent foul on Divock Origi in the build up, while Burnley’s Chris Wood had a crucial goal ruled out for a similar foul as they lost to Leicester.
Also at Old Trafford, Liverpool winger Sadio Mane had a goal ruled out for handball, while Dele Alli’s equaliser against Watford was given after a VAR review despite a similar handball call.
Mark Halsey joined to talkSPORT to share his verdict on the weekend’s action and was fuming about VAR’s inconsistency, saying he is baffled why officials aren’t being encouraged to use pitch-side monitors to review incidents.
The former referee is an advocate of VAR but says, while other leagues worldwide use the technology to great effect, the Premier League have got it all wrong.
“This weekend has been disastrous for the Premier League and VAR,” he said on Monday’s Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast.
“It’s not difficult to operate! If you look at all the leagues around the world, even the Champions League, that are using VAR, why are we not using the monitor?
“VAR is there as an assistance to the referee and the on-field referee has to have that final decision, so he has got to go and view the monitor.
“I speak to some of the officials and I know they want to use it, but Mike Riley thinks it would be too time consuming.
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“We’ve seen so many inconsistencies this season, we’ve seen obvious errors and serious incidents missed and it’s not been overturned.
“If the referee had the opportunity to view the monitor Watford would have had the chance to go 2-0 up [against Tottenham].
“I just cannot understand why Dele Alli’s goal was not disallowed for handball, given the new mandate. If Sadio Mane’s was ruled out against Manchester United, surely Alli’s has to be ruled out as well.
“Sean Dyche must be absolutely fuming this morning as well. They don’t rule out the Manchester United goal, yet they did rule out the Burnley goal which was far less a free kick than the one we saw yesterday at Man United vs Liverpool. And when you look at the Origi and Lindelof incident, that was a clear foul.
“We need consistency!
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“For me, VAR will work. Used correctly, I feel VAR would be a plus for the Premier League, but at the moment I feel it’s an embarrassment to the Premier League.
“It’s making a mockery of the Premier League.”