VAR has constantly been at the forefront of football news since being introduced in recent years, providing plenty of contentious and controversial decisions that the technology was aiming to prevent in the first place.
While VAR’s decision to chalk off Coventry City’s last-minute winner against Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final brought plenty of negative attention, this was far from the technology’s lowest moment over the past weekend.
The game between Everton and Nottingham Forest was one that held huge weight in the ongoing Premier League relegation battle, with the two sides both within just two points of the drop zone – largely due to the point deductions they have faced throughout the season. Everton went on to win the game 2-0 and move five points clear of 17th-placed Luton Town, but Nottingham Forest felt they were wrongly denied three clear-cut penalties.
Ashley Young was involved on all three occasions, bringing down Giovanni Reyna and Callum Hudson-Odoi inside the box either side of half-time while also seemingly moving his arm towards a crossed ball inside the box, but VAR deemed all three to not be penalties.
Forest have since released a statement stating “three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept. We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him.”
With these problematic decisions and the following statements that have been released bringing so much scrutiny, we’re going to take a look back at just a small sample of the most controversial VAR decisions in EPL history:
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2023/24 – The worst VAR decision of all time?
A game between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool at the beginning of the season saw the two enter into the match so far unbeaten in the league, and VAR was heavily involved throughout.
The first arguable decision came in the 26th minute when an initial yellow card awarded to Curtis Jones was reviewed by VAR, resulting in the card being changed to an extremely harsh red and leaving Liverpool with 10 men.
The visitors then thought they had broken the deadlock through Luis Diaz, but VAR intervened and deemed the goal to be offside. Replays have shown that throughout the process of checking the goal VAR aimed their focus on the wrong defender, with the Spurs player closest to Diaz clearly playing him onside. Despite this, the goal was ruled off with PGMOL eventually releasing a statement that there had been a “miscommunication” between the VAR and on-field referee, one that resulted in Liverpool losing a potentially crucial match.
Liverpool went on to receive another dodgy red card, this time to Diogo Jota, with Tottenham securing a 2-1 win in injury time.
2022/23 – VAR wrongful investigation
This VAR error came in a match between title-chasing Arsenal and Brentford in February 2023 with Arsenal 1-0 up at the time of the call.
Brentford drew level just 10 minutes after Leandro Trossard’s opener thanks to Ivan Toney’s finish, but VAR was called to check on a series of issues.
Ethan Pinnock looked to originally be offside before potentially fouling an Arsenal defender when he won a header in the buildup, but VAR decided that both incidents were fine after a three-minute check and allowed the goal to stand. Lee Mason, who was in charge of VAR for the match, had failed to fully complete the check though, focusing only on Pinnock while the assist from Christian Norgaard should have also been looked at.
Pinnock’s header fell to Norgaard who put the ball across the box for Toney to tap in, and VAR had crucially missed the fact that the Brentford midfielder was blatantly offside when Pinnock made contact with the ball.
The game went on to end 1-1, costing Arsenal a vital two points in the title race as Manchester City closed to within three points of the Gunners at the top of the table, going on to win the Premier League at the end of the season.
2021/22 – The handball incident
This match between Everton and Manchester City has to be mentioned when talking about the worst VAR decisions since being introduced to the Premier League, with Everton being denied a stonewall penalty.
Rodri attempted to control the ball inside his own box but the Spaniard appeared to misjudge the bounce of the ball as it came off his upper right arm. The referee decided not to award the penalty at the time of play, but this decision was understood due to the speed of the incident and potentially being unsighted due to a series of players in between Rodri and the referee.
The error came when VAR also claimed there was no foul play, leaving Everton and football fans gobsmacked at the decision.
The angles that VAR were shown have been replayed numerous times since the incident took place with it obvious across all the pictures that the ball comes off Rodri’s arm, leaving it as a definite penalty. Despite this, Paul Tierney and Chris Kavanagh – the duo involved in the decision – made their call based on a single angle that was slightly harder to tell where the ball had struck, rather than using one of many other angles that clearly showed the contact.
Manchester City retained their 1-0 lead and went on to win the game, leaving Everton still fighting in the relegation battle right up to the end of the season, while City eventually won the Premier League title over Liverpool by just a single point – leaving a bitter taste in the Reds’ mouths.
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