Michail Antonio calls for VAR to be ‘binned’ after controversy in West Ham v Chelsea clash
West Ham striker Michail Antonio believes that VAR is taking “passion away” from football after the Hammers were involved in a 2-1 defeat against Chelsea where a controversial decision from VAR grabbed all the headlines.
The Irons scored an equaliser in the final stages of the match, only for it to be ruled out for an apparent Jarrod Bowen foul on goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.
Antonio, while speaking on the Footballer’s Football Podcast on BBC Sounds, was of the opinion that VAR is causing more confusion for the on-field referees.
“I have said this many times. It [VAR] needs to be binned,” he said. “As a player, we all knew it [the incident] was nothing.
“It is all about opinions – about the referee’s opinion, about the fourth official’s opinion and about the opinion of whoever is watching.
“If the referee makes a decision, then there is another person who goes ‘that might not be the right decision’. He goes to the referee ‘you might have to have another look at that’.
“He is putting doubt in the referee’s mind when he is already sure about the decision he has made.
“He goes over and watches [on the monitor] but because someone has already said to him you might have got that wrong — it has clouded his mind already.
“The person who is meant to make a decision, who is quite sure of his decision, believes his decision is right, has now got that doubt and feels he needs to change – or if he doesn’t change [wonders] if he is going to get into trouble because another referee has told him to change.
“It is taking the passion away from football because you don’t know if you have scored or not – it is pointless. You are spending all this money on VAR for things to still go wrong.”
Important
While Antonio might have a point, the reality is that game is over and there is nothing that can be done about the result even though now pretty much everyone accepts that the decision to disallow West Ham the equaliser was wrong.
However, it is about time to move on from that debacle and focus on future matches as the Hammers fans will be hoping to see even better performances from the players, especially in the Premier League where the side have only managed to register four points from the first six matches.
Next up for the Hammers will be FCSB in the UEFA Conference League opener on Thursday and David Moyes will be keen on starting the contest on a positive note, especially after the heroics of his team in the UEFA Europa League last season where they qualified for the semi-finals of the competition and lost to eventual winners Eintracht Frankfurt.