Officials are being encouraged by PGMO to avoid forensic examination of incidents and stay committed to referee’s call and the original “clear and obvious” threshold for intervention. Last night's five-minute review into Antoine Semenyo’s ruled-out second goal for Manchester City against Newcastle United brought widespread criticism.
PGMO fully aware that such lengthy VAR delays cause frustration amongst fans. Dedicated VAR training now ongoing to speed up interventions. Average VAR intervention time is now less than 50 seconds. According to recent stats, the Premier League has the lowest VAR intervention rate in European football with officials in England intervening just once in every four matches on average. But controversies like last night's damage VAR's credibility.
The review was lengthened due to Semi-Automated Offside Technology not being available. The system’s cameras had their view of the ball blocked by players. VAR Stuart Atwell was forced to revert to the previous manual process of drawing lines to assess if Erling Haaland was offside and interfering. Atwell then recommended a pitchside review by Chris Kavanagh, who ruled out Semenyo's goal. #NEWMCI
