February 12, (THEWILL) – Brentford’s equalizer in Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Arsenal was allowed to stand due to what has been described as a VAR “human error.”
In the English Premier League fixture played at the Emirates, Ivan Toney’s late goal was deemed valid, despite Christian Norgaard being in an offside position in the build-up to the goal.
Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, expressed his anger about the missed call after watching the goal back and was backed up by Chris Foy, a representative of the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL). In an interview, Foy explained: “Ivan Toney puts the ball in the net and VAR Lee Mason obviously runs through the checks. VAR was looking to see if there was an offside and whether Ethan Pinnock had blocked off Gabriel in the build-up.
“He looked at the possible foul and decided there hadn’t been one and therefore referee Peter Bankes hadn’t made a clear and obvious error. However, in the build-up to the goal, Christian Norgaard – whose cross it is that Toney heads in – is in an offside position. However, the truth is that VAR didn’t fully investigate with the lines. The lines, simply, didn’t go down. And that counts as human error. Had the lines gone down the goal would have been disallowed for offside.”
This was not the only error in VAR calls during the weekend, as Brighton’s Pervis Estupinan was also wrongfully denied a goal against Crystal Palace due to lines being drawn to the wrong player. The errors in VAR calls have raised questions about the technology’s reliability in the EPL.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
