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Broadcasting VAR decisions live should NOT happen as it'd be 'chaotic'

  /  autty

Any hopes of VAR decisions being broadcasted live to the public are not in the pipelines over safety fears for officials.

Pressure has grown from managers, players and those within the media for greater transparency over how decisions come about during matches after contentious calls this season.

Tottenham's 2-1 win over Liverpool last month was shrouded in controversy when the latter were wrongly disallowed the opening goal scored by Luis Diaz.

Darren England and Dan Cook, who were the VAR and assistant VAR, incorrectly adjudged Diaz to be offside when he was clearly played on by the outstretched leg of Tottenham's Cristian Romero.

At the time of the incident, VAR England and assistant Cook mistakenly thought the on-field decision was onside, so did not correct the blunder.

The decision enraged Liverpool who demanded the PGMOL to release the audio for the monumental gaffe - which they eventually did.

And while the International Football Association Board (Ifab) believes supporters should be told about decisions, they believe it should not happen during live matches.

'I categorically say no, they shouldn't,' Ifab secretary and chief executive Lukas Brud told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast's Rick Edwards.

'I was allowed to observe and see communication between match officials during a review and it is quite a chaotic situation, not in a negative sense but there's many people talking at the same time and I think it would be counterproductive for anyone to listen to all those voices talking to each other.

'Then you have the VAR and the assistant VAR, the replay operators, the referee and maybe even the assistant referees and fourth official, so all of a sudden it becomes quite a chaotic experience.

'We have given the green light to test the announcement of decisions to bring a little more transparency to decision making, but we are not prepared at this point to open up communication live to the audience.'

Sports such as rugby union, rugby league and cricket are used as examples at the way in which greater transparency works - but for Brud he feels that isn't feasible with football due to the different nuisances.

'They are different sports with different set ups,' he added.

'We cannot compare by simply saying it is the same. In football, processes are slightly different.

'Football is different because everyone is putting a magnifying glass on every decision and every single word would then be analysed in the media and it would create a very unsafe environment for referees.

'They need to feel safe when they are focused on decision-making.'

The spotlight on VAR reared it's head again at the weekend during Burnley's 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth.

A controversial moment occurred after 89 minutes when Jay Rodriguez fired into the bottom corner and - although it was immediately ruled out for offside - video assistant referee David Coote at Stockley Park took five minutes to review the incident.

Initially a green line was drawn to signal it was onside before a new line was drawn, which showed red and it was eventually ruled out.

The previous longest VAR check was three minutes and 45 seconds, when David McGoldrick had a goal disallowed for Sheffield United against Tottenham in November 2019.