A huge scandal, the aftermath of which continues to rage.
On Saturday in the Premier League, Tottenham beat Liverpool.
of Liverpool Curtis Jones already received a red card in the 26th minute for his dangerous tackle to Yves Bissouma. Son Heung-Min gave Tottenham the lead. of Liverpool Cody Gakpo smoothed out.
Diogo Jota received his second caution in the 69th minute, allowing Tottenham to play with a two-man advantage.
Tottenham scored the winning goal in 90+6. Or Liverpool’s topper Joel Matip charged Tottenham Pedro Porron from the centering he gave the ball into the top corner of his own goal.
Well, there were events for one match. But that’s not all, for now the biggest talking point of the whole season was the disallowed goal from Liverpool in the 26th minute of the match.
Mohamed Salah released by Luis Diazwho shot the ball into the bottom corner of the Tottenham goal, but at the end of the VAR review, the situation was confirmed as offside.
Except Diaz clearly wasn’t offside. In this way, a new, bright crown was obtained in the Premier League’s comprehensive VAR mess-up history.
This is how the scandal was born
On the field, the offside situation went as seen in practically every match these days. The assistant referee thought the situation was offside, but he waited for the situation to end. This way situations can be verified by VAR if a goal is scored.
Diaz loaded the ball into the goal, and then the assistant raised his flag for offside.
Acted as the main referee on the field even after the VAR review Simon Hooper announced that the offside will remain in effect.
After the match, PGMOL, the professional referees’ organization in England, and its boss Howard Webb could not help but apologize. According to the organization, it was a “significant, human error”.
The mistake was so radical that at least all Liverpool fans felt like scratching their eyes while watching the situation.
On Tuesday, the commotion took a new, very interesting turn. Liverpool had demanded “complete transparency” in the investigation of the matter. Thus, PGMOL opened a completely unique view of the jury’s communication in audio format to all the people. The audio and the accompanying video were shared by in the message service X, among other things, a well-known football journalist Fabrizio Romano.
If before you felt like scratching your eyes, now you had to scratch your ears – that’s how stupid the VAR crew’s tinkering was.
The combination of audio and video makes it clear how the scandal in the VAR booth arose.
VAR room referee Darren England (VAR) and the man who played the video (replay operator) talked. When the offside lines were drawn on the picture, England saw that Diaz was NOT offside. After that, England announced to referee Hooper on the field that “check complete”, the check was completed.
Hooper, of course, thought after England’s acknowledgment that everything is fine, the situation really IS offside, the original ruling stands. And the game continued with Tottenham’s indirect free kick. Cooper also thanked the VAR men for the good and quick process.
At this point, the replay operator expressed his surprise.
– Wait, wait, wait, wait. Offside was ruled on the field. Are you satisfied with this? the replay operator asked the VAR.
Even at this stage, England assured that he was satisfied. England’s second man also intervened in the discussion Dan Cook (assistant VAR). Finally England realized his mistake and started cursing.
So England mistakenly thought that the goal on the field had been accepted in the first place, and was not ruled offside. This is the ultimate flaw of the whole scandal.
Hooper, who refereed on the field, found out about the mistake only at the break of the match – he only hears the messages directly addressed to him from the VAR booth.
Referee Hooper, VAR, Assistant VAR and replay operator had already participated in the discussion. As soon as the mistake appeared, the discussion was attacked again It was Kohout (VAR Hub Ops executive), who operates the operation in a different location than the match’s VAR team.
Kohout started shouting that the game should be delayed so that the investigation of the offside decision could continue. To this, VAR, or Darren England, stated that he could not do anything, because the game had already been resumed.
The decision has received a lot of criticism in England. Technological innovations and the desire to stick strictly to traditional rules go hand in hand wonderfully.
The laundry is washed with high power
Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp criticized the jury’s decisions as unfair and crazy.
Read also: A blatant mistake cost Liverpool a goal, admits the referees’ organization – Jürgen Klopp and the experts did not stroke the head: “Terrible”
Published by Liverpool an extraordinary announcement, which stated that “the integrity of sport has been violated” and such mistakes can no longer be justified by “human error”. In addition, the club said that it was “investigating options on how to proceed in the matter”.
On Wednesday, Klopp demanded a replay. It’s clear that it won’t happen. In England, a match has never been replayed due to a referee’s error.
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk reminded, VAR should be completely clear and sure in its decisions. He said that he is losing his faith.
This brings us to one of the core issues of the scandal. It’s about the most catastrophic and blatant – and potentially even the championship-deciding – but by no means the first bad mistake after VAR was introduced in the Premier League for the 2019-2020 season.
Citing the traditions of the king’s sport, technology was resisted in England longer than in other big leagues in Europe. In other countries too, at first there was a lot of trouble with the new systems, but in the Premier League, the confusion has been taken to a new level.
Independent writethat now the Premier League is in a “real crisis of credibility”.
– Why the country that invented the sport is unable to understand the use of VAR is becoming one of the great mysteries of our time, downloaded in turn Fox Sports.
In England, it is felt that everyone laughs at the Premier League. There have been demands that VAR be given up until its use is under control. According to the British media, “stakeholders” such as TV companies are furious about the world’s most watched and valuable football league.
With the advent of VAR, referees are under more pressure than ever, even though it was supposed to make the job of the referees easier.
VAR is still in the hands of the people. Its purpose was to raise the correctness of convictions to 98 percent, not 100 percent.
However, in the eyes of the general public, VAR has created a situation where not a single mistake can be accepted anymore.
And how could one accept a situation where VAR sees that the offside penalty was wrong, but still leaves it in place.
VAR farces have also spawned various conspiracy theories about the integrity and corruption of referees.
In the good old days, wrong judgments were enraged, but then it was understood that football is a human activity and we moved on.
Although more understanding is needed in each case, the Premier League must be able to do better. There will be too many mistakes, catastrophic mistakes.
In conclusion, it must be said that I admire Finnish refereeing activities and expertise.
In Finland, of course, there is a clamor for VAR, because the game with VAR is different than without, and the lack of VAR prevents the advancement of Finnish referees on international fields.
Read more: Even in such football lilliput countries, VAR is in use – a tough message from a referee expert about the situation in Finland
It’s amazing that there aren’t more catastrophic judge decisions in Finland and that even difficult judgments are correct with such admirable precision.
How is a taxi of non-professional referees in Finland capable of quality work from match to match without technology, while in England a taxi of professional referees is not capable of this with the help of technology.
Refereeing was also discussed in the recent 11 friends football podcast, when the guest was a top referee from the Veikkausliiga Mohammad Al-Emara.