Credit: Imago/Viaplay

James Barker

Mon 11 May 2026 11:46, UK

Peter Schmeichel hasn’t held back in his criticism of the officials involved in disallowing West Ham United‘s goal against Arsenal.

It’s the VAR decision of the 2025-26 Premier League season so far, and it’s no doubt going to have a huge say on the respective races at both the top and bottom of the division.

Indeed, West Ham thought they’d salvaged a vital stoppage time equaliser through Callum Wilson on Sunday, after Arsenal took the lead on 83 minutes.

However, after a lengthy VAR check, referee Chris Kavanagh came to the decision that Hammers forward Pablo had committed a foul on Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya from the corner.

As such, Arsenal beat West Ham 1-0 at the London Stadium, stretching their lead at the top of the table to five points, whilst keeping the Hammers a point behind Tottenham in 18th respectively.

What Peter Schmeichel said on West Ham/Arsenal controversy

Many fans and pundits alike feel as though West Ham were robbed against Arsenal because of this decision.

After scouring over the incident for five minutes, eventually it was decided that Pablo fouled the Gunners keeper, clearly going against VAR’s tagline of amending ‘clear and obvious’ errors.

The response from some West Ham players and many people in the media has largely seen a strong reaction against the decision, and one of those to do so is Schmeichel.

Speaking on punditry duties at the London Stadium for Viaplay, the goalkeeping icon pulled no punches in his assessment of the incident, hitting out at the officiating team involved.

“What really makes me angry is that Arsenal would never be top of the league if that’s a free-kick,” he said.

“That’s how they’ve scored so many goals, by blocking people, holding people, doing all kinds of things.

“And then we get to this point. It takes VAR five minutes. Darren England the VAR five minutes, and he starts it over again and starts it over again and again.

“That in itself put so much doubt into that decision, that it cannot be a free-kick. It cannot. It’s so wrong.

“I just don’t understand why all of a sudden that’s a free-kick, because it’s not been for any teams all the way throughout the season.

“All this, it’s just crazy. That decision today, it’s just so wrong on so many levels.”

West Ham incident proves we need to take the A out of VAR

VAR, if anyone is unaware, stands for video assistant referee. The key word in there being assistant.

This technology was only ever meant to help the referee make an informed and clear decision, but what the West Ham disallowed goal against Arsenal was is another example of it being judge, jury and executioner.

Kavanagh didn’t award a foul on-field to Arsenal as he didn’t spot a clear and obvious infringement, and the very fact it took five minutes to pour over the footage suggests there wasn’t one.

Like goal-line technology has proven to be for clearing up whether a ball has crossed the line, VAR was supposed to be a golden bullet for on-field refereeing mistakes.

The very fact there is so much debate as to whether not just that West Ham call made by Kavanagh was right or wrong, but that we sit here on a weekly basis debating VAR-led decisions, shows it’s not working.

Even after VAR gets involved, fans and pundits are still bickering over whether it was right or not, and so for a role that is meant to be an ‘assistant’ one, VAR has now gotten far too much power to impact a game of football.

It’s still often entirely dependent, like it is with on-field referees, who you get in the VAR room as to whether a certain decision is made one way or the other, meaning it’s largely entirely subjective decisions being made.

If we’re going to press on with VAR in the Premier League, then we need to change it’s name to VR for video referee, as in its current form with the power it wields, it’s not an assistant’s job.