Sky Sports set to make major change to TV schedule following recent VAR controversies
SKY SPORTS are set to make a major change to their “Mic’d up” referee show following the recent VAR controversy between Liverpool and Tottenham.
The show has been running since the beginning of this season, and sees host Michael Owen talk through the week’s refereeing controversies with PGMOL chief Howard Webb.
The programme sees Webb explain that week’s decisions with the aid of audio between the referee and the VAR room.
But going forward, it seems the show will be given much more access to VAR recordings and the programme will be shown more frequently.
That comes after the huge error not to award a goal to Luis Diaz during Liverpool’s 2-1 loss to Tottenham last week.
Diaz’s goal was wrongly disallowed on the pitch for offside and VAR should have given the goal.
However miscommunication between Darren England’s VAR team and the referee saw the goal ruled out after the VAR team wrongly assumed that the goal had been given on-field.
Play was therefore restarted and according to VAR protocol, the game cannot be taken back in time once a game has resumed.
As per Henry Winter of The Times, the show will now be shown more regularly and be granted greater access to decision making in order to regain trust in the VAR process.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was enraged by the decision to rule Diaz’s goal out and suggested that the game should be replayed in light of it, saying: “It’s important we really deal with it in a proper way. I mean all of the people involved, the referee, linesman, fourth official and VAR – they didn’t do it on purpose. Yes it was a mistake, an obvious mistake.
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“I say this not as manager of Liverpool but as a football person – I think the only outcome should be a replay. Probably will not happen.”
Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou meanwhile broke his silence on the matter earlier today and said that he expects referees at the top level to make mistakes.
Postecoglou said: “I don’t think anyone realised that something significant had happened during the game. It was only when I got to the press conference that I knew something important must have been happening. A fairly significant adventure in a game of football.
“Whatever I say will be seen through the prism that we were the beneficiaries of a mistake and we certainly were. The facts of it are that there was a legitimate goal that wasn’t given. It became clear it wasn’t an integrity issue, it was a mistake in communication that cost Liverpool a goal.
“We want an errorless faultless system that doesn’t exist and will never exist, unless we want to turn our game into an event that goes for four hours while we’re explaining every decision.”
Postecoglou suggested that changing the language used around VAR checks may make it easier to decipher whether an error has been made in the future.
He said: “From my perspective when I listened to that audio, saying ‘check complete’, someone obviously thought it was a good way of finalising things and it’s worked up until now.
“I would have thought the logical thing is to say ‘goal for Liverpool’ and there isn’t anything but I’m saying that with the ignorance of not knowing how it’s truly set up.
“When listening to that you probably think there’s better ways of communicating a clear decision in such a big situation.”