We’re surprised it’s taken this long for the Pro Ref lads to release an apology statement this season but it’s finally here after the contentious Manchester derby yesterday. Enzo Maresca took his new Manchester City to Old Trafford and came away with all three points, despite being down to 10-men after Phil Foden was shown a red card for kicking out at Bruno Fernandes AND the only goal of the game awarded after a VAR decision that allowed a clearly offside goal.
The game was still developing when Phil Foden and Bruno Fernandes came together in the 23rd minute. Fernandes fouled Foden and appeared to kick his arse as he hit the floor, leading to retaliation from Foden who kicked up with his both his feet from the floor. There is an argument to be made that both players should have been sent off, but Foden was shown a straight red card and Fernandes didn’t even get a booking. We know it’s not quite the same as a two-footed tackle getting looked at for height above the ball and its severity by VAR but surely the incident could have been looked at differently.
For the Haaland goal, the VAR concluded that Dorgu's foot played Haaland onside from Gvardiol's cross. It also decided that Enzo Fernández (in an offside position in the middle of the box) was not interfering with play. It’s absolutely incredible to us that anyone could look at a replay of that goal, or just at normal speed at the time, and think that he wasn’t interfering with play.
Pro Ref (Professional Game Referees) is the new name for PGMOL, the body responsible for referees covering the English pyramid. The body looks after refs from the elite level of the Premier League, throughout the EFL leagues and all FA competitions. Former Premier League referee Howard Webb has been the face of the organisation since the start of the 2022/23 season.
In the evening Pro Ref released a statement acknowledging a mistake had been made during the match.
“The on-field decision was offside against Haaland – that was checked by VAR and he was found to be in an onside position.
“In the same attack, it was established that Fernández did not play the ball and therefore that makes any offside offence subjective, however, on this occasion, the VAR did not recognise the likely impact of his position and should have recommended an on-field review.
“Contact has been made with Manchester United this evening to acknowledge what we deem is an error of judgement. A review of the incident will take place.”
What annoys a lot of players, coaches and fans about the statements apologising after the fact is that there seems to be no real accountability from the referees. They hide behind these statements rather than fronting up and going on camera to explain decisions. It happened 7 times last season, which is too many times that a failure by the referees and VAR have impacted results. It doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
What does this all mean? It means that the refs are still not good enough. Not those on the pitch or those full kit wankers at Stockley Park. The English attitude to using technology has been a high and mighty one from the start. Why would they use the semi-automated offsides that were already designed and in-place in European competition when they could spend money and waste time designing their own? That ended up being used a few years after the European model, with lines being drawn on screens looking for an armpit offside, much to the frustration of every fan, coach, manager, and commentator across the world. Why would they take a common sense approach to DOGSO and offsides and handballs and a whole host of other matchday issues and incidents? Instead, they can hide behind the messy and weak Clear and obvious rule and a ‘high bar’ for VAR that seems to change every single week.
We believe in VAR as a concept, and moving with the times to utilise technology in an effective way to make the game better. Unfortunately, the English refereeing system doesn’t seem to know how to use it, after all these years of trying. We don’t think there’s any truth in corruption and certain teams being favoured. All the referees are shit and incompetent and every team suffers because of it. This doesn’t make it any easier to swallow when something happens to your team but we believe it's the truth.
How long do you think we’ll have to wait for the next statement from Pro Ref apologising for a mistake in a Premier League match? We’ll bet 5 days!
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