Premier League panel’s Liverpool verdict is laughable and makes mockery of VAR

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‎A Premier League panel has ruled that Nottingham Forest’s penalty against Liverpool last month shouldn’t have been awarded – but nor should it have been overturned
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‎Liverpool were furious with Samuel Barrott’s decision
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‎Making a mockery of VAR is not that difficult these days. Even in these so-called modern times which continue to embrace ancient but now traditional mistakes.
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‎But this hasn’t stopped the Premier League panel from rubbing the nose of a VAR system it continues to tolerate right in the dirt. The latest ruling has decreed Nottingham Forest should not have been awarded a penalty at Liverpool following Alisson’s challenge on Neco Williams.
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‎Yet the League’s ‘Key Match Incidents’ (KMI) panel insisted the decision did not reach the threshold for a VAR intervention. So, Michael Oliver was correct not to send referee Sam Barrott to the pitch-side monitor.
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‎The decision helped Forest go 2-1 ahead before a late equaliser saw Liverpool salvage a point. The KMI Panel voted that Barrott should not have given the penalty, but supported the VAR outcome.

It said: “The contact from Alisson was inevitable as a consequence of his momentum in attempting to save the ball. The contact made was not reckless and below the threshold for a penalty.

“However, the non intervention by the VAR was unanimously supported, on the basis that it was not a clear and obvious error.”

Confused yet? Well, here might be a simple explanation to the umpteenth incident in top-flight football to leave a farcical and lasting stain on its current reputation.

The verdict is laughable, because it is essentially admitting not one mistake has been made but two – yet those making them continue to be right. Go figure.

Barrott got it wrong in awarding a penalty in the first place. Then Oliver compounded the mistake by making one of his own, having decided not to send Barrott to the monitor to correct his original blunder.

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