UK Edition
This weekend was utterly disastrous for referees, advocates of VAR and the Football Association itself as we saw a number of extremely poor decisions across three FA Cup quarter-finals.
To start with, it is absolutely ludicrous that the FA have decided teams outside the top flight are not allowed to use the technology available, and events at Millwall and Swansea showed the stupidity of not having VAR at their last-eight ties.
There is no doubt that Brighton would have had real cause for complaint if they had not gone through at the Den. I felt there were clear fouls on defenders in the build-up to both Millwall goals, with the first one on Glenn Murray particularly obvious. Referee Chris Kavanagh and his assistants should have spotted them but that is what VAR is for - to ensure human errors like that do not lead to game-changing incidents.
Brighton then got back on level terms and thought they had won the game in the last moments of extra-time when Jurgen Locadia swept home Martin Montoya’s pull-back, only for the latter to be incorrectly ruled offside by assistant referee Sian Massey-Ellis. It was another poor error and one that VAR would have overturned instantly.
Credit to Kavanagh for seeing the horrendous challenge by Shane Ferguson on Lewis Dunk and correctly sending the Millwall player off, but this was a bad day at the office where VAR would undoubtedly have proved useful.
The same could certainly be said at Swansea, where Manchester City were on the end of some fortunate decisions in their 3-2 victory as they were awarded a soft penalty, while Sergio Aguero’s winner was offside. Swansea were in the Premier League last season and their ground is clearly of a good enough standard for VAR to be installed. It is crazy that it wasn’t and I will never understand why the FA have left themselves open to ridicule in this manner.
That said, VAR clearly isn’t the solution to all our problems if used incorrectly, as was the case at Molineux. The issue here was a sliding challenge by Manchester United centre-half Victor Lindelof on Wolves’ Diogo Jota as he broke away down the wing. It was a poor tackle and Martin Atkinson, a very experienced referee, deemed it worthy of a red card. That decision was downgraded to a yellow card by the official behind the TV screen, who on this occasion was Kavanagh - a man who had to referee his own game at the Den a little more than 15 hours later.
I think Martin got the call right, and I cannot see how Kavanagh overruled him. Law 12 states a red card must be shown “when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and/or endangers the safety of an opponent”, which I thought Lindelof did. We must also remember that VAR should only be used to overturn “clear and obvious errors” and I do not see how Martin’s decision was in any way a clear and obvious error.
In addition, I would like to know why we seem to be the only country in the world that gives the VAR authority over the referee, rather than allowing the official to review their own decision on a screen at the side of the pitch. In every other competition, including the World Cup and Champions League, the referee is asked to have another look and make the final call themselves whereas in England we seem to have decided to tell them they’re wrong. It’s crazy and I don’t know how it’s happened.
In summary, it is a complete mess whether or not you have the technology, and English football suffers as a result. I have had top international referees from other countries call me and ask what we are playing at, and I can’t answer them. Standards have fallen and weekends like this show us all in a very poor light. Here’s hoping we get our house in order because at the moment it simply isn’t good enough.
Keith Hackett is a former referee and his ebook, You are the Ref, is out now
This weekend was a disaster for referees and advocates of VAR