The VAR official who denied Brighton a goal against Crystal Palace on Saturday because he drew an offside line in the wrong place has been stood down from two Premier League fixtures. John Brooks has been replaced as VAR at Monday night’s Merseyside derby and Wednesday’s game between Arsenal and Manchester City. Andre Marriner and David Coote will control the monitors at the respective fixtures.
An emergency meeting is being convened by Howard Webb, the head of the referees body the PGMOL, after a weekend of high-profile VAR errors.
On Saturday, Brighton’s Pervis Estupiñán was denied the opening goal at Selhurst Park after he was adjudged offside. Brooks was found to have made his decision based on an offside line drawn from the position of the Palace defender James Tomkins when Marc Guéhi was deeper and playing Estupiñán onside. The game finished in a draw, with Brighton dropping points in their chase for a European spot.
A potentially even more consequential mistake occurred in the 1-1 draw between Arsenal and Brentford, where the VAR, Lee Mason, did not rule the Brentford midfielder Christian Nørgaard offside in the buildup to Ivan Toney’s equaliser. Mason spent more than three minutes observing the position of the Brentford defender Ethan Pinnock, but did not appear to perform an offside check on Nørgaard, who stood beyond the last defender as he received the ball to set up Toney.
With Arsenal dropping two points in the title race, Mikel Arteta described the outcome as “frustrating” and said he had not been shown a definitive image proving Nørgaard was offside. “With the second [possible offside], I don’t know because you have to see the line the way they see it with the cameras,” he said. “It’s irrelevant. It’s gone.”
The PGMOL confirmed on Sunday that Webb had contacted Brighton and Arsenal to “acknowledge and explain the significant errors”. Webb is to host a meeting of top-flight officials at Stockley Park on Tuesday with next weekend’s refereeing appointments confirmed after.
Webb returned to the English game in December as chief refereeing officer of PGMOL after a lengthy spell in the USA. A keen advocate of VAR he has made public his desire for greater transparency in decision-making, but has acknowledged that standards need to be raised among officials.
