Referees chief Howard Webb is getting tough with Premier League officials after the disastrous weekend of high profile gaffes.
Video Assistant Referee John Brooks, whose error led to Brighton wrongly having a goal disallowed for offside, was removed from being on duty for the Merseyside derby on Monday night and Arsenal’s clash with Manchester City on Wednesday night.
Former Premier League referee Webb, chief of referees' body PGMOL, has already summoned all top flight officials to attend a meeting at Stockley Park on Tuesday to discuss what went wrong last weekend. Andre Marriner was brought in to replace Brooks for the Merseyside derby while David Coote will be on VAR duties for Arsenal’s title crunch with City.
Arsenal were left furious because Brentford striker Ivan Toney’s equaliser should have been disallowed for offside and the goal denied Mikel Arteta’s top-of-the-table Gunners two precious points in the title race.
VAR Lee Mason used technology to check a potential offside against Ethan Pinnock in the build-up to the goal, cleared the Brentford centre half but then did not make a similar check on Christian Norgaard and TV replays show he was clearly offside.
Brooks wrongly disallowed Pervis Estupinan’s goal for Brighton after drawing the VAR offside lines against the wrong Crystal Palace defender.
It was a weekend to forget for the officials with controversy also surrounding Chelsea being denied a penalty appeal at West Ham when referee Craig Pawson waved play on even though Tomas Soucek clearly blocked Conor Gallagher’s shot.
However, that decision is subjective and the VAR did not overrule Pawson. That is not necessarily seen as a mistake while the other two are obviously wrong. The controversies are a major setback for Webb who was brought in as the PGMOL’s chief refereeing officer at the end of last year.
That has led to the summit meeting on Tuesday. The officials meet every fortnight but, after a highly embarrassing weekend, Webb brought it forward to try and look for reasons and answers over what went wrong.
The PGMOL announced Brooks’ removal on Monday just hours before he was due to be on duty from Stockley Park and there is growing pressure on Mason to be left off next weekend’s list of appointments which will be announced on Tuesday.
It is not the first time Mason has denied Brighton as, back in February 2021, he chalked off Lewis Dunk’s free kick despite giving them the green light to take it quickly and initially giving the goal - only to disallow it.
Webb rang both Brighton and Arsenal on Saturday night to personally apologise for the mistakes in their respective games last weekend and he insisted upon taking ultimate responsibility.
The VAR controversies led to widespread condemnation as Match of the Day pundits Alan Shearer and Danny Murphy described some of the decisions as "unfathomable" and “awful.”
Up until the halfway point in the Premier League season, there had been 48 VAR interventions and 42 were proved correct. There have also been signs in the stats that there has been a further improvement since Webb took over and he has a clear determination to be more visible, transparent and restore confidence into decisions.
