Whether you think that VAR is a good thing or a bad thing for football, it is clearly an absolute farce to have teams effectively playing under different sets of rules in the same competition. How has the FA allowed this to happen FFS ? The Watford and Wolves quarter finals were played using VAR, the Millwall and Swansea ones were not. Man City scored two goals that would have been ruled out, had they used VAR (Sterling dived for the penalty, and Aguero was offside). Brighton had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside which would have stood, had they had VAR. Given that Swansea were a Premier League club with Premier league finances for years, should they not have retained the VAR equipment - reported to cost around £250,000, when they were relegated to the Championship? You can understand the EFL not wanting some clubs to use VAR and wishing to in the same league, but how can this be justified in the FA Cup? Given some of the controversial decisions at the weekend, it's another dent in the reputation of the once great FA Cup.
Agreed. I can understand it not being available in every league because it's expensive. But leagues are closed competitions. Either everybody has VAR or nobody does. A level playing field. The same should have applied in the FA Cup. Because not every competing team has VAR at their ground, it should not have been used in any FA Cup game. The common sense of this is blindingly obvious. Another thing that is now bothering me about VAR... Am I imagining it, or is every goal scored at a VAR game now being reviewed, to see if there was a foul somewhere in the build-up that might invalidate the goal. In other words, looking for an excuse to disallow it. I did not think VAR would be used like that. But I suppose pressure from the players and dugout of the team that has just conceded the goal is going to be applied every single time. Not much sportsmanship there. And a time will come when fans won't be able to celebrate any goal until a minute or three later, when VAR has vetted it. A big nail in the coffin of the atmosphere inside football grounds.
