Arsenal had what would have been an 85th-minute winning goal ruled out in their draw with Crystal Palace on Sunday. Sokratis Papastathopoulos smashed the ball into the back of the net after a coming together involving Calum Chambers and Luka Milivojevic in the penalty area.
The Greek defender wheeled away in celebration and the stadium erupted only for the goal to be ruled out by the VAR. The Video Assistant Referee, according to the game’s lawmakers is only supposed to intervene when there has been a ‘clear and obvious error’, leaving football fans up and down the country mystified as to why Sokratis’ goal was chalked off.
Renowned commentator Ian Darke labelled the decision as “Altogether bizarre”.
Disallowing that late Arsenal goal yesterday was VAR’s worst moment yet. Not even a hint of a CLEAR error on original decision to give it. Altogether bizarre.
— Ian Darke (@IanDarke) October 28, 2019
An opinion shared by many. This Arsenal fan believes the club should be exploring the option of taking legal action against the Premier League, if that is even possible.
I really think Arsenal should take legal action in regards to the VAR decision. It’s corrupt. Who in their right mind thinks that is a foul by chambers when actual fact he is being fouled. Really hope this doesn’t affect Callum’s confidence.
— Gareth Stevens (@galthegooner) October 28, 2019
Here are the rest of the replies:
Would be great if #Arsenal fans could channel their anger at VAR today. A perfectly good goal disallowed that has cost us 3 points. Are we sending the #VAR folks a memo today?#AskingForAFriend
— Sophie Nicolaou (@soccerdiva) October 28, 2019
Arsenal & Everton were the victims of VAR this weekend because the way the whole thing is run it’s not working every week decision are wrong for the one they get right they get 3 wrong spoiling the game
— Lee Judges (@leemarkjudges) October 28, 2019
Of course it’s Arsenal that has the first referee decision overturned by VAR.
— 7amkickoff (@7amkickoff) October 27, 2019
Yep. Nothing clear and obvious about it. Sokratis on the other hand had his shirt clearly pulled off last Monday. Nothing given. Very frustrating and dejecting. Officials are corrupt or just inept? VAR is there to help, but seems the Premier League is making it up as they go
— GöönerChris (@chrisgoona) October 28, 2019
What do we think?
For some absurd reason, the Premier League have decided they will not be sending the referees to the monitor on the side of the pitch to decide for themselves. VAR is being applied differently to the way it is being operated on the continent, where it appears to be working a lot more efficiently.
In one fixture, we witnessed the good and the bad of the VAR system as Martin Atkinson’s decision to book Wilfried Zaha for diving was correctly overturned and the Ivorian was awarded a penalty. However, later on in the same game we saw the concerns of many regarding the inconsistency in its application come to the forefront when Sokratis’ goal was ruled out. Many decisions in the sport remain subjective and therefore you’re always going to have some level debate but it seems pretty much everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet regarding this one.