Howard Webb has called a meeting of all his referees, following two huge ‘human errors’ by VAR officials in Premier League games at the weekend.
VAR has often caused controversy but it was ratcheted up on Saturday, following mistakes at offsides, as both Arsenal and Brighton were on the wrong end of decisions.
Roberto de Zerbi’s side thought they’d taken the lead against Crystal Palace, when Brighton full-back Pervis Estupinan had the ball in the back of the net.
Gunners’ legend Ian Wright was absolutely apoplectic at the decision that went against his former side, which cost them two points in their title race.
Now, according to the Mirror, the former referee, who took his role as chief refereeing officer in England last August, has now called a meeting for all the refs.
They have all been called to Stockley Park, where VAR officials sit to make decisions for games, on Tuesday in order to discuss exactly what went wrong.
Stockley Park’s VAR set up. Image: AlamyFormer PGMOL boss Keith Hackett called for Mason, who made the error against Arsenal, to be sacked, taking to Twitter to say, “Howard Webb is now in charge of the PGMOL. One of the first things he should do is dismiss permanent VAR operator Lee Mason.
“This weekend Mason lets another referee down by not disallowing the Brentford goal for offside. These are decisions that VAR should get right.”
Later adding, “He is a serial offender he must be fired. He is not good enough.”
Mason and Mike Dean, who retired from being an on field ref at the end of the last Premier League season, are both permanent VAR officials.
However, that was at least the perfect example of things ‘evening themselves up’ over a season, after the Hammers were controversially denied an equaliser against their London rivals back in September.
