Referee’s view
Technology is there to help the officials, but on this occasion it has got the decision completely wrong. It is another case of the offside lines making the situation worse, when clearly common sense should prevail.
Professional Game Match Officials has said that the Var could not get an angle that conclusively showed whether Mbaye Diagne’s upper body was onside or offside, so
has stuck with the on-field decision of the assistant referee to flag for offside. It is a perfectly legitimate goal, he’s not offside. Anybody looking at the footage without the lines and without the technology should be able to make a judgment call. The Var watching in Stockley Park should be able to make that judgment on what he sees in front of him. That is why I am totally against the use of the offside lines.
We have got to be able to referee the game without technology, and when the technology fails we have got to be able to make a judgment call. That call should be clearly that Diagne is onside. To rule out a goal incorrectly shows there is a fundamental fault line in the technology, which underpins my concerns.
If this was
goal-line technology, there would be seven cameras – if a player is in the way, they have other cameras. Yet they only used the one angle – why didn’t they look at another angle that could prove Diagne was onside?
Confusion exists. The assistant referee does not flag in some situations – in this he did, and they got it wrong in an important game in West Brom’s relegation fight.