‘VAR Causing ‘Costant of Referees’ Authority’ – Postecoglou

Following Spurs’ defeat to Chelsea, Ange Postecoglou demanded “upskilled” referees and claimed that VAR is causing a “constant erosion of referees’ authority”.

Tottenham saw Cristian Romeo and Destiny Udogie sent off during their 4-1 defeat to crosstown rivals Chelsea on Monday evening. It was a wild first half at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as VAR took centre stage once again with a couple of disallowed goals and the red card for Romero, which prompted the fourth official to add 12 minutes as stoppage time.

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Postecoglou stated his opinion that excessive VAR use is bad for sport and eventually results in a reduction of the authority of the on-field match official, even if he declined to censure referee Michael Oliver.

Decisions are decisions: you either accept it or you don’t,” the Spurs boss told Sky Sport. “Some of it is self-inflicted [but] if we are going to go out and complain about bad decisions every week what will happen is what happened today: a forensic study of every decision. I think that’s the way the game is going. I don’t like it – I could be a lone voice as I’m told that’s the way forward. With VAR intervention it just felt like a lot of standing around. At some point, we have to accept the referee’s decision. This constant erosion of referees’ authority, this is what the game is going to get: they will not have any authority, it is going to get diminished and we are going to be in the control of someone a few miles away watching a TV screen.”

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta strongly criticised the decision regarding Newcastle’s winning goal against his team on Saturday, as Anthony Gordon’s strike was allowed to stand after three separate VAR checks. In response to the controversial officiating, the club issued a statement urging the swift improvement of refereeing standards. Postecoglou appeared to echo Arteta’s thoughts and insisted that officials should be “upskilled” to reduce the dependency on VAR.

“What I want are the best officials always being upskilled to officiate the game but it’s so hard for referees to officiate these days. Their authority is constantly getting diminished,” he told reporters. “Now, we want transparency and I can guarantee the next thing is we will have referees mic’d up explaining decisions. There’s plenty of other sports you can watch where referees do that but I don’t think it should be in football. But I’m in the wilderness on that one. Premier League managers should just manage their football clubs. I’ve never and I never will talk to referees about the rules of the game. I was taught that you grow up and you respect the officials. Now, managers look for ways to bend the rules. Tell me what the rule is, and I guarantee you will have a room full of managers processing ‘how can I get around this’.”

The Blues will play Man City at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, while Spurs will return to action on Saturday against Wolves at the Molineux.