PGMOL head of referees Howard Webb said he was frustrated that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) did not intervene when Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes was sent off during their 3-0 thrashing by Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League last month.
Fernandes was sent off in the 42nd minute for a high challenge on James Maddison at Old Trafford, but later avoided a three-match suspension after United successfully appealed the red card.
“We released the audio, you can hear the assistant referee — who’s got a good view of it — just saying, ‘that looks awful, 100 percent red [card] for me,’” Webb said on the Stick to Football podcast.
“From his angle it looked it, because it looks like the studs have gone in. But then there’s another angle shown on the replay on Sky Sports. Straight away I’ve gone, ‘that’ll be an overturn,’ but it wasn’t,” he added.
“I was frustrated that we didn’t step in to rectify it because it was clearly wrong in my opinion and he didn’t drive the studs in. If he had then it would have been a red card,” he added.
VAR was introduced in 2019 to assist on-field officials with key match decisions, but the technology has been at the center of controversy with complaints ranging from its extensive analysis to delays that can take several minutes.
Teams voted in favor of keeping VAR in June despite huge amounts of criticism about the technology-aided officiating system last season.
VAR had made far fewer errors this season, Webb said.
“We have this independent panel which has got ex-players on it, and they judge each decision each week, and according to the panel — which is independent from us [PGMOL] — there has only been two VAR errors this season compared to 10 at the same time last year,” he added.
Webb officiated in the English Premier League from 2003 until his retirement in 2014.
He was made PGMOL head of referees in 2022.
Additonal reporting by staff writer
Taiwanese runner Lo Wei-ming (羅維銘) broke the record for his age bracket and finished third in this year’s Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race on Monday evening in New York (local time). Running the multi-day footrace for his fourth consecutive year, Asian record holder Lo broke the “age 60 record” by finishing in 45 days, 12 hours, 37 minutes and 55 seconds, according to the organizers. The previous age 60 record of 50 days, 15 hours, 6 minutes and four seconds had been held by British runner William Sichel since 2014. Now in its 28th year, the Sri Chinmoy Self- Transcendence 3100 Mile
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
‘GLOBAL PRESSURE’: LA’s Dave Roberts said that it was difficult to appreciate the ‘pressure on a global scale’ his starter was under ‘pitching for his country’ The Los Angeles Dodgers shelled out US$1 billion for Japanese talent in the off-season and it is paying off in the MLB playoffs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday outdueled Yu Darvish in a historic post-season matchup of Japanese-born starters, while the Dodgers got home runs from Kike Hernandez and Teoscar Hernandez to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 and advance to the National League Championship Series. “It’s pretty sweet,” a smiling Freddie Freeman said. Yamamoto allowed two hits over five innings for the win, getting pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between heated NL West rivals who were meeting in a