Palace owner wants to turn off the video Charles Sale

crYStaL PaLace chairman Steve Parish has slammed the Video assistant referee system ahead of Saturday’s decision on whether to use it at this summer’s World cup.

Parish called the introduction of Var a ‘dangerous road to go down’ while speaking at the Sport industry Breakfast club yesterday.

nevertheless, the rule-making international Football association Board are expected to give it the green light for russia 2018 when they meet in Zurich following trials in numerous countries. here, it has been deployed in the Fa cup, carabao cup and for england internationals.

however, mixed results have not impressed Parish, who says he will vote against the Premier League bringing in the technology when the clubs make a decision next month.

he said: ‘i am very worried about Var. i hate all those games that stop and start, waiting for a decision, and they don’t necessarily get the decision right. We’re going down an incredibly dangerous road with that. My real problem is that we’ve got it for five decisions at the moment, but i can’t see any end to it. You know the answer for everything is going to be more Var.

‘i don’t see a point of having it for five things when you’re still going to get massive injustices. i remember when rugby introduced television Match officials. i just lost interest in it.’

the expectation is that the Premier League will vote in favour, especially with the Bundesliga and La Liga doing so already.

But scepticism is growing among Parish’s PL colleagues and he added: ‘right now i would be a no. But if the rest of world football was a yes, that’s not even close.’ lTHE

ECB may be without a car sponsor after Toyota decided not to renew their backing. But former England wicketkeeper Matt Prior (right), who has switched agents to join Benchmark Sports, has managed to attract blue-chip marque Aston Martin to support his emerging professional cycling team One Pro. the rFu are reviewing the generous perks given to their privileged members, which include seats in the royal Box at twickenham. the threatened members believe the union are doing this in order to give more prime seats to sponsors. But the rFu say they are so short of room in the royal Box and other ViP hospitality areas that it has a become a health and safety issue.

lPOSITIVE

news for all sports governing bodies is that recent financial reforms will allow spending on community sport to be offset against corporation tax. So, expect a rash of grassroots initiatives coming out of Lord’s, Wembley, Twickenham and Roehampton.