West Ham’s VAR-induced loss against Arsenal refuses to depart the headlines: If anything the Tottenham v Leeds game has raised the profile of poor refereeing decisions and video referee interference yet further. After stealing a point from West Ham, VAR almost repaired the damage by deciding to take two points away from Spurs last night after Leeds’ penalty award and the Spuds’ late demand for their own penalty being refused.
Away from mere football headlines, the ripples and aftershocks rumble on, surely meaning that the sport’s administrators need to act in the summer to restore clarity and continuity.
VAR controversy won’t die down
Trouble is, the damage will have been done by then as ‘VARsenal’ will likely have hoisted the Champions pennant over the Emirates Stadium by then – whilst the Hammers could yet be Championship – bound.
Latest to enter the fray is former West Ham Manager ‘Big’ Sam Allardyce, according to National New outlet GBnews.com, who has gone so far as accusing the BBC of bias in their MOTD presentation on Sunday night:
Former Premier League and England manager Sam Allardyce has slammed the BBC for its “biased” coverage of a controversial VAR decision between Arsenal and West Ham United..Allardyce, speaking to the ‘No Tippy Tappy Football’ podcast, criticised the way the Hammers equaliser was chalked off, describing it as a “scandal”.
Allardyce goes into bat for West Ham – looking for a job next season, perhaps?
“Arsenal have got away with scoring goals without free kicks given against them so many times this year.
“The BBC then brought a former referee in Darren Cann on Match of the Day – well, the referee isn’t going to say he’s got it wrong, is he! It’s so biased!”
He’s not wrong. Maybe Alardyce is hoping to catch David Sullivan’s eye as being ready, willing and able to reprise his 2011/12 role at the club and lead the Hammers back into the Premier League via another successful play off final.
Have to be honest and say it was a foul but the fact it took nearly 5 minutes and the ref having to watch it like 20 times to determine that there was a foul surely sums up all you need to know that it wasn’t a “clear and obvious” error.
And as others are saying, there were clear fouls on West Ham players during it so surely the correct decision should either be disallow the goal and award a penalty or ignore the fouls and allow the goal?
They need to change the requirements of VAR because it’s clear that when they wrote “clear and obvious” they accidentally misspelled “the slightest smidgeon of an infringement which we needed a team of theoretical physicists and every camera angle available to determine that something may have happened.”
Hes right seen these goals given all season Plus there were the very least 2 rugby tackles on our players where a penalty should have been awarded Nobody seems interested to mention that Football in this country is a total stich up What’s the point of VAR if it favours certain clubs
Cheers BFS, now please jog on. That man produced the worst football I have ever had the misfortune to watch and some of that was in the championship. His football was even worse than Potter-ball
This is a complete lie and myth. Even though I wasn’t BSs biggest fan (no pun intended) I remember watching games that people would slate for the football and thinking this ain’t that bad. Certainly NOT the worst football seen in the last twenty years.
Sky’s was as bad, when former Spurs players are the pundits and might be out of work if they go down…
Speaking honestly it was a foul but it was also multiple penalty shouts, if we got the penalty it would be the correct decision as it was it was an incomplete decision.
How the hell also did that Spurs game go to 15 minutes added they gave them more than too much of a chance.
Thanks but no thanks BFS.
Good ridance to bad rubbish.