“So they didn’t give a penalty in open play. VAR then had a look at it. He thinks that [the referee] should give a penalty when he re-looks at it. Why then are we wasting a bit of time going to the monitor and all that entails?
Webb: “Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s an unusual situation. I think some people thought that the referee went to the screen and just rejected it, thinking it wasn’t a penalty when the VAR did. That’s not what happened. So on the field the referee didn’t recognise any offences at all. The VAR knows there’s an appeal for a penalty, so checks that and sees that Yoane Wissa is clearly holding Lewis Dunk and deems that that’s sufficient for a penalty kick, and the non-award of a penalty kick is clearly wrong.
“But of course, on every situation we check the attacking phase of play before a penalty kick or a goal, for example. And when the VAR checks the attacking phase, he can see a clear offence by Dunk on Wissa before the penalty offence. So the VAR then sends the referee to the screen to have a look at the full sequence, because the referee makes the final judgement on all aspects.
“And of course there’s benefits of doing that as well, because imagine the situation where the stadium, the players have seen a very clear penalty offence that’s not given on the field, doesn’t go to review. They don’t know why. There’s a good reason why it’s not a penalty because there’s a foul before but that might not be apparent to people in the stadium.
“So by sending the referee to the screen, he can make the final judgement on the full sequence. And it tells everybody that the penalty offence that was waved away has been looked at by the VAR. The referee has gone to the screen to have a look at a full sequence and can also make a judgement on the first part of it, which is the reason why the penalty isn’t given.”
Owen: “You touched on quite an interesting point there because if you’re sat at home, you’re following the narrative a little bit but if you’re in the stadium, sometimes you’re thinking, ‘What’s going on here?’ How can we improve that stadium experience for people?”
Webb: “It does need improving, doesn’t it. When you hear the clips on shows like this it makes sense what’s happening. It all becomes apparent and actually you’ll hear the referee, Andy Madley, having been to the screen saying, ‘I’m going to speak to Lewis Dunk to explain why the penalty that he feels he should have isn’t going to happen because he’s fouled Wissa before that.’ We’re looking at ways to improve the in-stadium experience.
“One of the things you’ll have seen maybe in FIFA tournaments, like the Women’s World Cup, is announcements from the referee once they’ve been to the screen. So we’re looking at that, we’re keeping an open mind about whether that’s something we could utilise in the Premier League. For situations like this it would be really useful for the referee to be able to speak to all of the people in the stadium – [to explain] the rationale for why you didn’t give a penalty because of the foul that happened before the penalty appeal when Dunk fouled Wissa.”
