West Ham striker Michail Antonio has joined the chorus of voices calling for the Premier League to scrap VAR (Video Assistant Referee) in the aftermath of a glaring error during last weekend’s Tottenham vs. Liverpool match, which saw a legitimate goal wrongly disallowed.
VAR officials Darren England and Dan Cook failed to intervene when Luis Diaz’s perfectly good goal was incorrectly ruled out for offside. They believed that the on-field referee, Simon Hooper, had already awarded the goal during the match.
Michail Antonio has called for VAR to be “binned”
The incident has ignited a significant debate about the effectiveness of VAR in English football. The PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) issued an immediate apology to Liverpool and released audio recordings of the incident. Jurgen Klopp expressed his desire for the game to be replayed, although his comments have generated considerable discussion.
Michail Antonio is among those who believe that the Premier League should do away with VAR. He stated on The Footballer’s Football Podcast, “VAR should be binned. It’s not the first time I’ve said it, and it’s not going to be the last time I say it. VAR was introduced because of the debates that occurred after every game. Too many human errors were happening, so we brought in technology to reduce the debates. But if you look at the stats, the debates are still ongoing.”
Jurgen Klopp called for last weekend’s match to be replayed earlier this week
He continued, “Now we have technology, and there are still human errors. It’s come to the point where you need to accept that human errors are part of football, and it made football better. People are losing their heads over it, but at the end of the day, referees are human, and they can make mistakes. So people are trying to change it, but the changes are not making it any better. So you might as well bring it back.”
Jurgen Klopp had initially suggested that replaying the game would be the fairest solution. However, he clarified his remarks after Liverpool’s Europa League win over Union Saint-Gilloise, saying, “I knew it would be difficult when yesterday I spoke about the other game. I knew. And you proved to me, again, everybody, just how the world is. I think everybody who was here heard what I said, but everybody understood obviously something else! But it’s okay!”
Klopp also addressed the controversy in an interview with TNT Sports after the match, stating, “I think with the headlines unintentionally I created and with the press conference, I’m completely over it, it’s nothing so we don’t have it in our mind. It’s difficult to not have it in your mind, you open something, and it’s like, oops, it’s still something, but we have nothing to do with it anymore. That’s now other people who take care of that, and we are completely focused.”
