Every Premier League weekend seems to bring more controversy around the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system, with the use of the technology questioned or strongly criticised by players, pundits and managers.
Brighton alone have received three apologies from refereeing body PGMOL for wrong decisions, the most recent an admission that Roberto de Zerbi’s side should have been awarded a penalty in a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham.
Meanwhile, referee Lee Mason left the PGMOL in February after failing to draw VAR’s offside lines and เว็บข่าวบอล rule out a Brentford goal against Arsenal.
VAR has been described as “seriously flawed” and “inefficient” by pundits Gary Lineker and Danny Murphy respectively, while Brighton captain Lewis Dunk has questioned the point of it after being on the wrong side of a number of controversial decisions this season.
PGMOL knows not everything is perfect and referees’ chief Howard Webb has, on a handful of occasions, had to contact clubs to acknowledge errors have been made.
However, there is a feeling within PGMOL that the noise generated by certain decisions is obscuring the reality of an improving situation.
PGMOL does not feel the overall situation is as bad as the one being portrayed and it was keen for figures showing improvement in VAR decisions since the World Cup to be made public.
A review of incidents by the independent five-person Key Match Incidents Panel, following the restart after the Qatar finals, suggests fewer errors than first thought.