The video assistant referee (VAR) made a mistake in all three of Thursday’s top-flight matches, the Premier League match centre has revealed.
Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes won a controversial penalty in their win over Aston Villa; Southampton captain James Ward-Prowe missed a spot-kick after he himself had won the decision in dubious circumstances in their draw against Everton; and Tottenham were wrongly denied a penalty when Harry Kane was shoved by Bournemouth’s Josh King in a goalless draw.
Head of referees Dermot Gallagher told the BBC that all three decisions should have been overturned by the respective VARs watching from the Premier League’s hub at Stockley Park.
Spurs manager Jose Mourinho said of the Kane incident: “In the world, everybody knows that is a penalty. And I say everybody, I mean everybody.” Villa’s Dean Smith descibed Fernandes’s penalty as a “disgraceful decision”, while Everton’s Carlo Ancelotti simply said: “The performance of the referee was like my team: not so good.”
It comes in the same week that Fifa took control of VAR’s implementation, taking away the power of the Premier League to make its own interpretations of the rules handed down by the sport’s lawmaker, Ifab.
