The controversies associated with VAR technology (Video Assistant Referee) began right from it’s inception, a section of football enthusiasts have even called for the technology to be banned or scrapped from football....CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
The scenario seems to be at it’s worst in England as hardly a match day goes by without an obvious error, more recently there has also been a growing concern that the technology favors some teams ahead of the others, in fact I call this a double standard rule.
The two teams who seem to be at the receiving end of unwanted decisions are Chelsea and Arsenal while Manchester United tend to be favored by VAR decisions.
Here are a couple of incidents that might support the case of Man United getting favored by VAR.
Incident 1
Last season, Reece James was shown a red card after this incident, the Chelsea defender tried to stop a ball going into his own net with his body but his arm and body connected with the ball, a VAR review judged this to be a penalty and a red card was given to James.
Although the players arm came in contact with the ball, but there seemed to be no intention to stop the ball with his arm because the arm was in a natural position and didn’t make his body bigger.
Incident 2
Here we have new Man United signing Martinez stopping the ball from entering the net with his outstretched arm, coincidentally this was a game against Liverpool and for some reason VAR didn’t award a penalty or a red card to Martinez.
It is obvious that the ball was goal bound and that Martinez stopped it with his outstretched arm that made his body bigger.
In my opinion, this is a clear case of the alleged “Favoritism” towards Man United.
Incident 3
Still on Man United’s game against Liverpool, Marcus Rashford’s winning goal should have been disallowed for of offside.
The winger was clearly ahead of the last Liverpool defender when he received the pass from Martial, despite a VAR review the goal was allowed to stand.
Incident 4
A similar offside incident to the Rashford goal was cancelled, Gabriel Jesus had his goal against Bournemouth cancelled for offside despite been ahead of the player fractionally.
In comparison with that of incident 3, Marcus Rashford was way ahead of the last defender than Gabriel Jesus was.
From the above review of four VAR incidents we can observe that the decisions favored Man United and went against Arsenal and Chelsea.
